


Stand Alone

by Endlessnotebooks



Series: Rise and Stand Tall, Our Day is Yet to Come [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Alchemy, Amputation, Automail, Avengers: Infinity War aftermath, Chimeras, Concurrent counterpart, Dimension Travel, Dogs, Gen, He is also such a Dad, I promise, Peter Parker is good with children, Post-FMA:B Canon, Roy Mustang is Blind, sentient soul stone, takes place immediately after Peter disintegrates and onward, the dogs will live
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-07-05 00:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15852945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endlessnotebooks/pseuds/Endlessnotebooks
Summary: They gave up themselves so that Peter would be able to go back and help defeat Thanos, but learning everything he needs to learn is going to take some time.Runs concurrent toStand Apart.





	1. Chapter 1

It wasn’t fair. The stones had stayed away from civilizations as long as they could, and when they were dragged into them, they limited what could be done with their powers by destroying those that tried to use them for too long. And, yet, here they were, the Mad Titan holding them all hostage and willing to use their power to wipe out half the _universe_.

Maybe that’s why she did it, why she ignored her siblings when she heard the call from the soul that the Man of Iron held close, the call that he didn’t want to go, but also the call deep in his soul.

_I want to stay. I want to protect you, and Miss Potts, and May. I want to help you fight Thanos._

So, she pulled some strings. She had limited power with dimensions, but she could tie his soul to another – she could create a soul bound to two different worlds. And she knew just who to tie it to, just what world to send him to. She could send him… a shade? A guardian? She would figure it out as she went. That had worked before, and she would have to make it work now.

“Truth.”

“Soul.”

*

Peter felt the cold before he registered the stark white of wherever it was he had been taken. As he sat up, he tried to pay attention to the conversation between the orange woman and the entirely white being in front of him. He stood up, looking at the beings in front of him. The white creature was short and lanky, not unlike him.

“That’ll come at a cost, just as his passage does.”

What the hell? He missed part of what the woman was saying as he got over the pain of having been forcibly reassembled.

“What else could you want?”

The creature shrugged. He turned to Peter. “You want to help that mentor of yours?”

Anything to help Mister Stark was a good thing in his book, so he nodded, paying close attention to the creature. “Alright then.” He pointed to the large gate behind him. “Open that up.”

The orange woman froze, glaring at the creature, but Peter wasn’t deterred. He had to get back to Mister Stark and Aunt May and Ned. Oh, god, he’d left Ned behind, too.

He started screaming out. From the migraine that was incoming from the knowledge seeping into his brain _(alchemy, laws, rules, equations, and endless possibilities)_ or the sudden pain in his leg, he wasn’t sure.

“Why?”

“Everything comes at a price. Law of Equivalent Exchange, my friend.” There was a sneer in his tone. He turned to the orange woman.

“Your little friend wants you to have alchemy. I’m just going to help out a little.” The creature pat his head, condescending sneer in place. “After all, you’d have to be quite something to get Soul’s attention.

“Besides, if you want to be of any use to anyone, you have to learn to stand on your own first.”

*

“You’ll give yourself up to ensure he goes to and from this world safely? That’s a change from a few centuries ago.”

“Yes, well I’m not planning on letting this Titan get away with destroying half our universe.” The Soul Stone paced in the endless white corridor, staring at the door behind Truth. “Your world has different rules, though. I want to be sure he can learn what he’ll need here, and that it will follow him back.”

“Hm.” Truth hummed. “That’ll come at a cost, just as his passage does.”

“I already promised you myself in return for him. What else could you want?”

Truth ignored her and focused on the boy, prompting an action the Soul Stone knew was going to be irreversible.

Truth shrugged at the boy’s agony. “I’ll just take that.”

Peter’s leg was gone up just past the knee, and the boy collapsed, screaming in agony at having it ripped off. Truth sauntered towards him, condescending to him about Equivalent Exchange, ‘helping him’, and ‘being quite something’. It made Soul’s being squirm. There was no reason to dangle a child on a stick like that, no reason to treat someone whom she had chosen to help defeat the greatest monster _her_ universe had ever seen as though he had just come to his gate with nothing but malintent or selfish purpose. But Truth was known for their, or in this case, his, ruthless policy. She had to ignore that, though, because there were more pressing matters.

“He’ll be able to use alchemy?”

“He just got the most effective crash course, but if you tied him to who I think you did, then he’s set on that front.”

“What of his powers?” The spider child was useful both because of his mind and his abilities. To have one compromised could be devastating for her plans.

“You have been paying attention to his abilities, haven’t you?” Truth smirked at her. “If he can transfer them through to his suit, what makes you think he won’t find a way to transfer it through automail?”

*

The next thing Peter felt on his skin was rain. The next thing he heard was dogs barking.

*

Winry and Ed had just gotten the children to bed when she heard their dog outside. Hers had long since died, but when their first child had been born, they had gotten another. Her childhood had many happy memories with Den, and she wanted her kids to have the same.

“Ed! Can you go check that!”

“On it, Win!”

She just barely had enough time to get down the stairs when he started calling her, the sound of the two dogs being a lot closer. She was about to scold him for bringing in a stray when she saw it wasn’t a stray, but a dog belonging to a young boy.

A young boy with an injury much like her husband’s own from years prior.

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah.” Ed looked grim, pulling the kid into her work station. “Help me clean him up, will you? We can ask him if he wants automail tomorrow. I’ll scold him about human transmutation once he’s better.”

Winry nodded, getting to work. It was going to be a long night.

“What’s he even wearing?”

“I’m not sure.” Ed shook his head, lifting the kid onto the table. As they went to take it off, the garment itself seemed to sense what they were doing, moving into a smaller object and wrapping itself around the boys wrist. There was a small inscription on it that Winry took a second to read.

“Peter Parker. I guess we have a name.”

Ed nodded, looking at the injury. The two of them refocused and began to work on getting the injury taken care of before the boy bled out. The large dog that had followed him was still sitting by his side, whining and staring at him. The dog had a look about it, beyond the yellow-orange eyes, that seemed too intelligent for a normal dog. It was a bright orange color, almost unnatural in dogs he had seen before.

Within an hour they had it disinfected, sewn, and covered.

“You think he’ll be okay?” Winry was looking at the kid with a strange look in her eyes.

“Yeah.” Ed nodded. “I don’t know where he’s from – that suit was weird, and that dog doesn’t… anyway. Whatever brought him here, he is gonna need us to watch out for him, at least at first. I don’t think he’s used to a place like Resembool.”

*

When he woke up, it was mid-day. There was a blonde man sitting near him, reading out of a book and making notes in the margins. The man called out to a “Win” before gesturing for Peter to talk.

“Who are you?” His aunt would have said that was rude, that he should have introduced himself first. He wasn’t exactly feeling politeness today, though, given everything that had happened.

“Edward Elric.” He set the book aside as a blonde woman came in. “This is my wife, Winry. And that machine that went to your wrist says you’re Peter Parker.”

“Yeah…” Peter shifted under his gaze. It was a hard stare, the kind that spoke more about the man’s experience than he ever could explain to Peter. He stared down at his leg, wondering what he was going to do about it. “Do you know where I can get a prosthetic?”

The man smirked, pulling up the leg of his pants. “We can do you one better, if you don’t mind using a prosthetic that doesn’t exactly fit for a while.”

“Woah.” Peter leaned up. The pain of being reassembled was fading fast, and instead it was the pain at his leg that was bothering him most. His curiosity, though, had always been one of the first things he turned to when it came to ignoring his pain. “Does that work like a normal limb?”

“Yep.” Ed dropped the pant leg, leaning forward. “It hurts when it’s installed, and every time it has to be taken off to repair it or modify it as you grow will hurt, too. You’ll have a lot of physical therapy associated with it. It’s entirely possible the procedure could be too much on your system, especially so close to the injury.” The injury that looked like the result of human transmutation, but Ed was going to wait to ask, to press. “Before you make the decision, you should be aware of the risks.”

Peter looked at the automail. It wouldn’t be the same as having a leg, but he had to stand on his own – isn’t that what that creature had said to him?

“I’ll do it.” Ed’s wife smiled at him.

*

Ed’s first impression of the kid was that he wasn’t a native of Amestris. His clothes were odd, and that suit wasn’t like anything he had ever seen before. Still…

He reminded Ed of himself when he was younger. There was fire, determination. The kid wasn’t going to let himself be held down for long. Ed admired the drive in the kid – woke up to a missing limb and immediately started planning ahead. He was willing to get automail, just to be able to meet his goal.

“We’ll be right back.” Winry placed a hand on Ed’s shoulder and squeezed, pulling him towards the hall.

“We should let him stay with us.”

“We have two kids already, Ed. Can we really afford it?”

“He can help us keep track of them. An extra set of hands.” Ed snapped his fingers. “You could have him help out with the shop. Train him in automail.”

“I don’t know…” Winry shook her head. “Teaching him could take forever, especially if he doesn’t have any engineering background.”

Ed glanced at the door and back to Winry. She knew more what they could afford – her automail business did chew up cash sometimes. “It’s your call.”

She walked in to the room, Ed behind her. “You’re going to need a place to stay.”

The kid looked uncomfortable, like he had overheard them. “I’ll find somewhere, don’t worry about it.”

Winry looked long and hard at Ed, thinking it over. “No, that’s nonsense. You’re already here, and we’ll need you here so we can make sure you adjust fine to the automail. You’re staying here.

“Don’t think it’s for free though!” She pointed at him. “Once you’re up and about, you’re helping us with the kids!”

“Yes, ma’am!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter begins adjusting to life without a limb.

The dog stayed near him, and he ended up calling her Ginger. Winry had agreed to let him watch her build the automail, explaining how everything worked. She was pleased that he kept up and asked questions that had more to do with the mechanics of the actual limb.

“How do you maintain efficiency over the life of the limb?”

“Most people come in for routine maintenance once every two to three years. If they’re harder on it, once a year.” She sent a glare to Ed, who was reading in her workshop when he wasn’t watching her work. “If they actually put in that effort, efficiency isn’t that much of an issue.”

Ed had the decency to look sheepish, sputtering about having been a dumb teen. He found himself laughing, reminded of Ben and May before Ben was shot.

“But what about the heat exhaust? Where does that go on a limb like a leg, where it’s going to be covered a lot of the time? Wouldn’t putting it too close to the wound exacerbate the condition?”

Winry nodded, pulling out the husk of the limb she was working on. “Well, that’s why I put it here.” She pointed somewhere that would end up being the upper, back calf. “In your case, your leg came off above the knee. Putting it a couple inches under the joint means any that doesn’t dissipate into the air is just going to hit the joint casing. In my experience, it has a negligible effect on the joint function.”

Peter nodded. “Before… what happened, I was really into this kind of stuff. Engineering, I mean. This is really fun.”

Winry glanced up from the automail at him. “Then work with me. Consider it how you’re going to pay off your automail.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Who knows, maybe you’ll get good enough to do your own adjustments and build your own. You seem pretty smart.”

Ed nodded. “How’d you even lose the leg, anyway?”

Winry shot him a dirty look. “That’s rude, Ed.”

Ed shrugged. “I’m curious.”

Peter became uncomfortable, and Ginger was immediately at his side, whimpering and asking to be pet. “I’m… I’m not even really sure where I am. I…” He paused before continuing, explaining as much as he could. “I don’t know how much of that even sounds remotely believable, but it’s what happened.”

Ed nodded. “Well, at least it wasn’t human transmutation.”

“What?” He remembered something about that from the gate.

Ed threw a book at him. “If you’re interested in learning alchemy, I’ll teach you what I can of that. I can’t do it anymore, but I have some of Al’s books here. You’ll practice and read about it, and I’ll answer questions.”

“Yes, sir!”

Anything that would let him help Mister Stark.

*

Working with Winry and Ed was amazing. He loved building the automail – and Winry had caught on to his propensity for engineering and building things and quickly put him to use, cutting down some of his basic training for some more advanced practice. He was helping construct the limbs for customers, starting with frames. As he got better, she started him on different levels of the inner mechanics. By the time Winry was ready for him to receive his limb – she had wanted to wait, make sure the wound wasn’t infected after being in the mud and rain when they found him – he was almost to the point he was building entire limbs on his own.

*

Winry wasn’t kidding about the pain. The operation for the connection was bad enough, especially given the anesthesia didn’t work on him. Winry felt bad about it, and Ed couldn’t stay to help her, but Peter made himself grit his teeth through the pain.

When the limb was attached, he passed out. The pain was extreme, and when he woke up, he was almost afraid to walk on it. Ed came in a few minutes later, glancing at the leg.

“It’s going to hurt for the first few days. A lot. Then it’ll start to fade, and after a while it’ll only flare up if you’re in extreme climates or if you've agitated it.” He sat down next to Peter. “I can help you through the recovery, but don’t do what I did.”

“What did you do?”

Ed grimaced. “I pushed myself to get through the recovery as fast as possible. In the long run, it was probably bad for my health, but I was twelve at the time. Go at your own pace.”

“I heal fast.”

“All the better for you, then. You said you fought back in your home, right?”

Peter nodded.

“Good. We’ll start working on that when you’re on your feet and steady again. Let Winry know if you need to change anything, alright?” Ed pointed towards the door. “She really liked your work. She’s happy to have you on board for her shop while you recover. It’ll work off the cost of the leg, and any adjustments we’ll have to make in the first year.”

Peter nodded. “Did it feel this heavy when you first got automail?” 

Ed smirked. “It’ll go away after a while. You’ll stop noticing it, but the weight of it might stunt your growth a bit.”

“What?” Peter groaned. “I’m already short enough, I was hoping to get a few more inches!”

Ed punched his shoulder, setting a book down in front of him. “Well, here you go. Start small, and all.” His smirk hadn’t left his face. “But, if you want to try something big, let me know before you try it. Might as well get your cemetery plot put together ahead of time.”

It was glib, but he liked it. “Yeah. Don’t forget yours, old man.”

“Hey!”

*

A few hours later, and Winry felt like she had been dropped back into the past, hearing two excited voices talking about alchemic principles. She could, for a second, imagine Ed and Al of the past, the two kids that would stay up all night reading and practicing alchemy.

She kept standing outside the door, just listening to the two as they spoke. There was something so pleasant about it. Ed, for all he said he didn’t miss alchemy because he had the people around him to help him, had been passionate about it. For all he had seen, she knew there was still a special place in his heart for alchemy.

And now he got to teach it to someone who, by the sounds of it, could keep up with him. She smiled, finally walking past. There was some maintenance she wanted to do on Peter’s automail, and she wanted to check for infection while it was early enough to re-affix the port, but she could wait a few hours on that. The two of them deserved some time to just enjoy life. Ed was working through his issues, but so much had happened, and he had spent so long pushing it down or just letting it out in small, explosive bouts as a teen that he had a lot to work through.

Something about Peter told her he had too.

Maybe the two of them would help each other.

*

Peter met Ed’s kids – Trisha and Maes – a few days later, when he was first allowed up. Winry had kept him down and checked around his automail port and the connectors to be sure there wasn’t any chance of infection before even letting him downstairs.

As for Trisha and Maes, he found he enjoyed their company a lot. Both were energetic and a little wild – Maes was six, and Trisha four. Both ran around the house at top speed, and Winry laughed as Peter tried to join them, often having to stop because of his body still getting accustomed to the change of weight and balance of his leg.

“You’re really helpful. I appreciate it.” Winry smiled as they sat for dinner, passing him a bowl of the chicken pasta she had made. “Now make sure you get plenty of that. It has protein, which you’ll need while you recover. And make sure you get plenty of the milk and vegetables, too. Your body has a lot to adjust to, and you need to eat healthy if you’re going to heal as fast as possible!”

Peter had avoided mentioning the enhanced metabolism, but Winry had made enough food for a small army, anyway, meaning he could eat plenty and not feel bad.

As soon as the food was done, Peter got up to help clean up. Ed was keeping the kids out of Winry’s way by making them bring their homework to the table while he helped them through anything they had trouble with.

“You don’t have to do that, Peter.” Winry gestured down towards where the metal foot was peeking out of his trousers (lent to him courtesy of Ed), “I know that still hurts.”

“It’ll hurt if I’m sitting over there, so I might as well make myself useful.” Peter picked up the next dish, drying it as he continued speaking. “Besides, I like helping with dishes. I always did it with my aunt, ever since I was little.”

Winry smiled. “Well, I’ll take the help any time.”

It was nice that this family had let him in and helped him when he needed it most. He missed May, and he missed Tony, but he might be able to find a way to get back to them if he focused and worked hard with Ed. In the meantime, he would do his best to earn his keep in the home and in Winry’s business.

*

Ed watched his wife and this young man they had taken in work. He had gathered enough from when the young man went off on tangents to know that he would be doing everything he could to get back to his aunt and this ‘Mister Stark’. If it was alchemy that brought him through, though, and that was a huge if, he would need to work with alchemy to find a way back, and there was only so much he would learn working with Ed.

He would have to leave and study and research on his own. Ed could teach him, but he couldn’t help him. He couldn’t send him back, and he couldn’t open the gate. He needed alchemy to do that, and he had given it up.

He didn’t regret it. He hardly missed it most days – he had a loving family, great friends (even if Mustang could still, even as Fuhrer, be an obnoxious _ass_ ), and a happy, full life. He was teaching at the local school in Resembool (science and math), which meant he got to walk his son to and from school. He got to help Winry with her business, even if it was only the bookkeeping, since he still didn’t have the patience and the wherewithal to sit and work on automail for as long as she did. It made him glad for Peter, though. As long as the kid was around, he would be a spare set of hands in the shop. And, while Ed fully intended to talk to Winry about it, he was sure they would be leaving the door open to him whenever he needed it, she would have intermittent help she could probably call or write to if she really needed it.

He was looking forward to seeing where this kid would go, and he hoped that he would have an easier time of it than Ed had.

Though, now that he thought about it, the kid would need more than just the slacks and button-down Winry had given him. While the two of them chatted, Ed walked up to the attic.

He hadn’t worn a lot of that stuff since he was about fifteen, and he had grown a lot since then, but if his old stuff fit the kid, he might as well pass it down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not an engineer y'all. I probably fucked all this up, but eh. Creative license! 
> 
> [Come say hi!](putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's recovery starts looking toward the future.

Peter did an excellent job hiding his anxiety and discomfort at adjusting to a new world. He hid it much like Ed had hidden his own emotions when he and Al had started looking for a way to get their bodies back – through copious amounts of rigorous studying, with the added portion on Peter’s part of pulling all-nighters to work with Winry.

As much as Ed admired the work ethic in the kid – something that had been established also as part of his nature, when he started helping Winry around the house without being asked in the months he had spent recovering and learning how to walk again. He had a long way to go, but the longer he worked with Winry, the better he got – he could recognize an unhealthy habit in the making. The part of him that was a devoted father was already cluing in on the fact that Peter wasn’t sleeping, was starting to eat less and less, and wasn’t nearly as energetic as before.

“You need to talk.”

“What?”

Ed shrugged. “You’re pushing yourself too much because of guilt. That just leads to a lifetime of unhealthy habits. Trust me kid, talk.”

“I…” Ed looked Peter in the eye as he started, raising an eyebrow and daring him to contradict him. “Fine. I’m from a time where I can pull out a little rectangle and use it to look up and research anything I want. I’m from a time where artificial intelligence is a creatable thing. Granted, it took a genius with a lot of monetary resources at his disposal, but it happened.

“I can stick to walls with my limbs and do acrobatics like a trained gymnast off instinct. Or, I could.

“But now I’m in a time that is an entire hundred literal years behind and I’m missing a limb. I came from 2018 to 1923. How am I supposed to handle that?”

Ed shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t know how _you_ are supposed to handle it, just that you are.

“You don’t get to spit on the people that got you this far by letting yourself fall apart at the seams. You keep living, no matter what. Sometimes that means you work your way up and out through the impossible, sometimes it means you accept the horrific or the terrifying. No matter what though, you don’t stop. That’s how you end up stagnant and letting the world pass you by when you could do something about it.

“You said someone had to sacrifice themselves for you to get here? Well then we find a way to get you back to your mentor and your aunt. It might mean more sacrifice, it might mean learning things I can’t teach you, it might mean a lot of things, but you’re going to do it, because I don’t tolerate quitters.

“You’ve told me a lot about yourself in the last four months Peter. If I didn’t know half of what I do, I would think everything you told me was fake. I don’t know how much I believe you, but I know two things about you – you’re a good person, and you’re not a quitter.”

Peter nodded, looking at the automail piece Winry had told him to work on. “I guess I should get some sleep, huh?”

Ed laughed. “That would be a good start, yeah.”

He watched the kid tramp up the stairs towards the guest room that had been repurposed by Winry for him. Ed had no doubt the kid would accomplish a lot, whether it was in this world or in the one he said he came from. He was a smart kid, and the more he learned about alchemy the more he asked the kinds of questions that could lead to huge breakthroughs. He had a strong moral compass, too, letting Ed relax a bit – the kid wouldn’t be another Shou Tucker, as far as he could tell.

The only concern he had was the spider DNA he had mentioned. The way he had gotten it didn’t sound like the chimera forming process, but that might mean nothing or everything in the scheme of alchemy. He wasn’t sure how Peter would be recognized by alchemists or under the principles of alchemy, but if he was a chimera that could make things worse for him. Ed sighed. Problems for another day, for after he had a chance to talk to Al and get a response back from Ling.

He glanced at the work Peter had been doing. He had Winry’s mechanic’s mind, too, it seemed. The world he talked about sounded amazing.

“You’re something else, I’ll give you that.”

There was a hum from behind him. Winry came up to him, pointing at the plans. “He designed this portion entirely on his own. The patient didn’t want the standard ball-bearings, he wanted something that would be tighter, despite the compromised range of movement it would cause. Kid came up with the layout of these to keep the response time low.”

“Interesting.”

Winry laughed. “All these years, and you still get lost in the engineering.”

“Can you blame me?” Ed smiled. “You’re a special type of genius. Plenty of people can do alchemy and learn it, but you design limbs for people, and you understand so much of the body, both as its own entity, but also as a machine. You’re incredible, Winry.”

Winry rolled her eyes, pushing his shoulder a bit. “Come on, Ed. We should follow your advice, too, and get some sleep.”

She stretched up, her back popping.

“Are you sure that’s healthy, Win?”

“Yep! Yours used to do it too, or don’t you remember?”

He did, and the memory of all the times she rolled her eyes at him made him smile. “Come on. That sleep thing sounds good.”

*

The next day, when Ed noticed Peter falling into his studies with that tense look around his eyes, he pointed it out to Winry.

“Come on, Peter. We’re going to start lunch!”

The next half hour was filled with the sounds of Winry coaxing Peter through a recipe, teaching him how to do each part of it. Ed was fascinated with Winry’s cooking. He had always been more of a baker, himself, and his kids did enjoy the sweets he would make for special occasions.

“Alright, now salt this _lightly_.”

Peter nodded, tapping the salt shaker a few times, stirring as he did so. Winry had kept her hands off the recipe, just giving Peter instructions as they went.

“Alright. Now keep stirring. Do that for about five minutes, and then we can add the meat to the pan.”

“Alright, Miss Winry!”

“Just Winry!” She laughed as she put a hand on his shoulder, pointing and telling him how he would know the meat was cooked through. “There you go! You’re doing great. Are you sure it’s your first time cooking?”

“I tried to help Aunt May before, but I wasn’t very good at it.”

“Maybe it was a bad recipe. You’re doing fine!”

The smile on the kid’s face was a far cry from the ones he forced. He was enjoying himself, laughing with Winry and trying to learn the song she was teaching him as they watched the pan.

Lunch wasn’t as good as normal – some of the food was a little overcooked, and there was either too much salt or too little – but there was something special about it anyway. Peter had worked hard to make it with Winry. It was a special memory. Ed would carry it with him a long time, this wiry, too-light boy they had taken into their home by pure happenstance smiling and enjoying himself as he finally started settling into the century he had been dropped in. Something told him Peter would keep it with him, too.

*

Peter kept cooking with Winry. It was fun, and he felt like he was getting better. She kept a watchful eye over him – much more watchful than she had been when he had been learning automail, but he _had_ taken to that pretty quickly – and gave him gentle instructions.

It calmed him down, slowing himself down to the pace that cooking required.

Unfortunately, that was the opposite of what he was doing with Ed today. Ed had decided to put him back on some combat training, given his background. It meant trying to navigate the ins-and-outs of a basic spar with a new limb he still wasn’t a hundred percent used to. It was just preliminary – meant to teach him how to make it work a bit better for him and how to use it in light combat – but by the end of it, he was ready to vomit. Try as he might to hide it, however, Ed saw through him.

“Go ahead and puke. You can clean yourself up when we get inside.” He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder as he doubled over and spewed his guts into the grass. He pulled some of Peter’s hair back, making him realize it had gotten longer in the time he’d been there. Long enough to fall in his eyes and down his neck. He would have to think about cutting it.

A few moments later, and Ed was helping him inside, sitting him at the table with a damp cloth while he got some water for Peter.

“I did the same thing to myself. I guess I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard.

“I don’t think you did half bad, though. You’re getting a feel for the automail.”

“Thanks.” Peter rasped another breath as he drank some of the water. It felt nice on his throat, cool and smooth. “Man, that was rough. How did you do your recovery in a year?”

“If it makes you feel better, you're still healing faster than average. And I recovered with a lot more vomiting and way too much spite.”

Peter laughed at that. “Oh god, that’s relatable.”

Ed smiled. When he had first come to them, he had some strange ways of speaking that Ed assumed came from his own time and world. Now, though, he was equalizing into something that shared characteristics of his bursts of “mood” and the like with some of the speech that was more common in Amestris.

“So Winry said you guys grew up together. What was that like?”

“Hm?”

“Winry. She said that you guys knew each other your whole lives.”

Ed smiled. “I guess we have. I don’t… I don’t think there was ever a time that Winry and I didn’t know each other. Her grandmother took care of us after our own mom died, too. Sweet woman.”

Granny Pinako was not sweet. She was hard and stern, but she was also caring and guiding. She was one of the best people Ed had ever known, and she made such a difference, but Ed didn’t know how to put that into words, so he settled with sweet.

Peter smiled. “Man, that must be cool.”

“There’s gotta be people you’ve known your whole life.”

Peter shrugged. “I grew up in a huge city. I moved to Queens when I was four, sure, but I didn’t go to the same school all of elementary school. I didn’t even meet my best friend ‘til middle school.”

“How old were you?” He was starting to get an idea, but the ages of Elementary, Middle, and High school were still confusing. He had gone to school for several years at the school house, and then he went to get alchemy training and then he was a state alchemist. The idea of 13 years of schooling seemed a bit much, but given how much the kid already knew it might not have been a bad idea.

Peter gasped. “Whoops! Sorry! I was about twelve at the time.”

Ed nodded. “Not a bad age. People get into all kinds of mischief at twelve.”

Like human transmutation, but he wasn’t going to talk about that. He was working on not letting it define him, and he had been doing a good job. He was a husband, a father, a brother, a friend, a caretaker.

It was still the kind of atrocity it was hard to come back from.

Peter leaned forward in his seat his arms resting on the table. “I want to get better and recover from the surgery as fast as I can. I don’t care if I vomit or pass out.”

Ed had wanted to help the kid because he was driven. He wanted to help the kid now, because it was becoming more obvious that the kid had a great heart and just wanted to help the people in his world, be it with alchemy or with their robotics and other sciences.

But, damn, if he wasn’t a lot like Ed when he was around that age.

“Okay. But if you’re pushing yourself too hard, or Winry and I think you need a break, we’re calling it. You have to rest as long as we tell you.”

“Yes, sir.”

There was no way the kid would listen to them, but it didn’t hurt to try.

*

Peter stretched out on the bed in the guest room.

Though, this many months in, the Elrics had started calling it his room. It showed, too. There were scraps of things he was working on for automail with Winry, sketched out alchemic equations and transmutation circles on papers across the room (he found them calming to draw and work out, and it was a good exercise for his circle-less alchemy to understand exactly what he was trying to do at a given moment), books open to various points and others bookmarked by pages of notes stuck between the pages. He had taken to drawing to pass the time, as well. It was really weird, being in another world and almost a hundred years behind. Beyond the fact that he didn’t have the connections to literally every part of the world like he was used to, he was also finding that he had so much _time_. He was still in recovery, sure, and that meant he wasn’t as agile and able as he wished he were, but it didn’t stop him from learning with Winry and Ed, playing with their kids, or learning to draw.

He wasn’t very good, but he was already seeing improvements. He would draw the Elrics a lot, since he knew their expressions a little better. Sometimes he would draw the stern looking man from some of Ed’s photos, though he couldn’t figure out how to make the man smile without it looking odd. Maybe he had to meet him.

But one of his favorite people to draw was Alphonse Elric. He had met Al a few times, when he stopped by to talk to Ed. He was in Amestris for a few weeks getting some things for an experiment he and his wife were going to attempt back in Xing.

Al had softer features and nice expressions. It was hard to get them, but the more Peter tried, the better they were beginning to look.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be drawing today. He had another spar with Ed – they did one a week – and then he was going with him to meet with the man in the photographs.

Fuhrer Roy Mustang. The man, Ed claimed, with a vision for a country he could never again see. It sounded like the kind of cryptic thing that Truth might have said. Even if there was only so much that Peter could remember of Truth – pain, anger, determination to get back and help Tony with whatever means necessary, and a curiosity at the strange woman Truth had called Soul – the experience in that all white world had stuck with him. It was in his nightmares, in his considerations, and in his plans for the future. He had little doubt he would have to get back through Truth to go home, and he had to figure out how to do it.

So he planned for the future. He drew. And he studied.

All in all? Not a bad life for a while. But he wouldn’t be able to sustain that. Ed had hinted at it, and Peter had suspected it before that.

There was a world of knowledge waiting for him to find it. He had Amestris to start in, Drachma to look into, the Desert Area. The more he learned about the places in this world, the more he felt that urge – the quiet one he had forced down because he knew May and Ben would never have been able to afford it – resurface. The urge to travel and see places unknown. He would talk to Ed about where to start, and then he would make a plan from there.

All he had to do was get better, and some days, that was no easy task.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter's recovery focused chapters are almost over, I promise. Soon, we move into the stuff with travelling, and then this gets interesting. 
> 
> [@lawyersuperpowers](lawyersuperpowers.tumblr.com) We're getting close to the part I was telling you about with Mustang, btw. 
> 
> [Come say hi! Ask box is always open (and allows anonymous)!](putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's recovery is almost finished.

Roy Mustang – and he had insisted on being called Roy – was a strange guy. Peter liked him well enough. He reminded him of Mister Stark in that he had a very focused vision, and he would work his ass off to make it come to pass. That much was clear just from his background, only a small bit of which had been shared with Ed. It only became clearer when the man was able to deduce a frightening amount of information after barely speaking to Peter a few moments. After that, Peter made sure to keep his own eyes on the man, waiting for a chance to talk to him alone. It seemed Roy had caught on, though, because he went outside and asked Peter to walk him around the property.

“You may remind Edward of himself, but you’re your own person. Don’t forget it.”

“How do you do that?”

He smirked at Peter. “What?”

“You can tell so much about people from a few interactions. How?”

Roy sighed. “It’s a learned skill.”

“It’s one I want to learn.”

He was sent here to learn what he would need to help against Thanos. That was his whole reason for being here, for meeting Ed and Winry, for losing a limb. If this could help, who was he to turn it down?

Roy gestured forward. “Is there somewhere to sit?”

“Yeah.” Peter grabbed his elbow. “I’ll walk you.”

*

The bench on the Elric-Rockbell property was a few dozen yards away, but neither had minded the walk. It was situated under a tree in the back of the property, which left it shaded and relatively cool, even in the oppressive Resembool summer heat, a norm from being so close to the desert that Peter wasn’t fond of.

Peter helped guide Roy so he was near enough and facing away from the bench to sit down before taking his own place.

“I didn’t used to be good at seeing through people.”

“Is that a pun?”

Roy didn’t answer him, but Peter was going to go out on a limb and say it was. “I don’t want you to take this as a lesson in not trusting people. Am I understood?”

Peter nodded before actually speaking. “Yeah.” He coughed. “I mean, yes sir.”

Roy smirked. “No need to call me sir. Again, a friend of the Elrics is a friend of mine.

“I guess we can start with the most obvious one to you – how they hold themselves.”

They spent the better part of an afternoon out there, and Peter drank in the information. Later, Roy would leave a name and address, a simple command in the bottom corner of the paper.

_Write me. We can continue these lessons through letter._

It was an offer he would definitely be taking Roy up on.

*

It was Ginger that first got him to leave Resembool proper. It was a short jaunt out of the town, following something only she could hear until they got a little closer.

A child crying.

She started pushing Peter towards the kid, and he in turn pushed her nose away a bit. “I got it, I got it.”

She barked at him. “I’m going!”

When he got closer to the child, he realized she was younger than he thought. Probably seven, at the oldest.

“Are you lost?”

“No.” She barely spoke above a whisper. “No, I’m not lost.”

Ginger walked towards her, pushing her head into the girl’s lap.

“What’s wrong?”

The girl shrugged. “I can’t go home. Mommy and Daddy are fighting again, and it’s because I got hurt playing with the neighbor kid.”

“Your mommy and daddy are probably worried sick about you.”

She looked at him. “You don’t know that.”

Peter sat down next to Ginger, looking at her. “Maybe not, but that’s what parents are supposed to do. Even if they disagree with each other, they worry about you.”

May and Ben used to fight. They were a happy marriage, but in the weeks following Peter’s parents' deaths he had woken up more than once to a fight that had heated up enough that they were raising their voices, try as they might to hide it from Peter. Things evened out eventually, but Peter had almost done exactly what this girl had, once.

“Want me and Ginger to walk back with you? You can talk to your parents.”

The little girl looked at him, and then at Ginger. She had been petting her the whole time, and began to laugh a bit when Ginger perked up at the attention, standing just enough to lick the little girl’s face.

“Okay. I guess.” She looked at Ginger. “You live in Resembool?”

“Yep! Just on the edge!”

“Can I come pet Ginger again sometime?”

Peter laughed. “She’d be thrilled.”

Ginger barked at that, a higher one this time, and pushed gently at the girl, nuzzling her face, and prompting more laughter from her.

Returning the girl to her home was easy, and Peter was right – her parents were worried. The entire way there, she spoke exclusively to Ginger, who barked back or would nudge Peter to say something. Once they were at the home and Peter had knocked, they were met with a worried mother picking their daughter up, her father looking anxiously on from the kitchen table.

“Thank you for bringing her home.” The woman ran a hand on Peter’s cheek. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad to have.” He waved at her father before leaving, whistling for Ginger.

The small things, that’s where he could start helping again.

The small things.

*

He slept hard that night. The talk with Roy had been heavy, and Ed had made some tea for the three of them, opening the door for some light and easy conversation as they slowed down before bed.

Sleeping hard, however, meant dreams. Though, for once, they weren’t entirely unpleasant. There were fights in them, sure, but there was also an image he woke up cherishing.

May, Tony, Pepper, and Colonel Rhodes all talking and laughing. Pictures being passed around.

Laughter was what he remembered in the morning, not the gore of the fights in between those flashes of people he cared about.

It was a nice idea.

*

Winry pulled Peter off of his current project to make him do the exercises to make sure he was adjusting to the automail leg properly. Even when they were complete, she shook her head and pushed him outside, dragging him on a walk to the market with her.

“It’s not healthy to stay cooped up inside all day. You need to talk to people, learn to take breaks.”

“But that’s a rush order!”

“No whining, young man!” She pointed at him. “Ed and I have our unhealthy habits already. We’re not letting you pick them up, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Maybe when you start travelling, you’ll know better than to spend all your time hidden away. If we can get you suited up as a mechanic, you can even take that skill on the road with you to make some money!”

Peter smiled. Travelling Amestris was going to be fun. That was the hope, anyway.

Peter grabbed a group of vegetables from the stock shelf for Winry, passing it to her. “This?”

She hummed in consideration. “Well… It’ll be good if you spice it right.”

Peter nodded. “Any tips?”

Winry smiled. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

*

Ed pulled Peter out after dinner for a late night spar.

“You need to know how to fight when it’s dark out, too. You won’t always have ideal conditions when you get in a fight, and this is where we can start training you to fight through a stumble, fight through not being able to see.

“You’re at an advantage. You have enhanced senses, so the dark might not be much of a challenge, but I’m not putting you _in_ life or death situations. Whatever Winry tells you, I’m not that irresponsible.”

Peter laughed. Winry loved Ed too much to say it, but there was some element of truth that she held the sentiment once in a while when something strange or potentially dangerous occurred.

Ed fell into a stance, and that was barely warning for Peter to slip into a defensive one, as he had a foot coming towards his face. He leaned back, going too far and falling. Using the momentum to his advantage, he landed on his forearm, catapulting his legs into the air in Ed’s general direction and throwing them back so he could come back up a little further back.

Ed was already charging, but Peter took the opportunity to duck the incoming punch and send his own fist towards Ed side for a body shot, slipping past him as he did and following up with a knee to the gut. Ed took that opportunity, throwing an arm under and around Peter’s knee, rolling forward, taking Peter with him. If he hadn’t let himself fall with Ed, his hip could have been dislocated.

The fall landed his arm on a rock, and he felt it dig into his arm and cut through the fabric of his shirt. He ignored the pain, though, rolling himself forward and pinning Ed to the ground.

“Good work. Reset, and we’ll do a couple more.

“The second your leg is giving you problems or you feel the urge to vomit, you let me know, alright?”

Peter nodded as he followed his instructions. By the end of the night, he was sore and bruised, cut in a few places, too, but he realized once again how much he missed the thrill of such fast-paced physical activity. It got his blood moving and his body thrumming in a way only beat by flying through New York on his webs or the time he fought Captain America. As he walked back with Ed, the two of them started laughing with each other, hard. He didn’t notice that he started standing with the same straight back, his head cocked to the side like Ed did.

As Truth watched on from his own world, he sighed. One day, the kid would understand what he meant. For now, though, he considered the motivations for bonding so close. He didn’t really understand humans, but he supposed one so young… well, maybe Soul knew what she was doing, tying him to someone to help him get his bearings.

He continued watching as the child landed himself in bed, barely getting his own sigh out before falling asleep and cutting off Truth’s field of vision. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! If you want to talk about the fic or drop me a line, find me [here!](putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com) My ask box is open, and allows anons! 
> 
> Thanks too all who commented!


	5. Chapter 5

The letters Peter exchanged with Roy were some of the funniest he had the pleasure of reading. He hadn’t done letters before – the twenty first century had kind of let that fall to the wayside – but he had had fun with Ned attaching random gifs and memes into emails.

But the letters were more personal. Riza, whose reputation had nothing to do with being Roy’s wife and everything to do with her own terrifying skill sets, wrote them for Roy and often included either a separate letter for Peter or her own commentary on what the two were talking about. Sometimes it was both, and those were the times he knew he had either messed up horribly or done something noteworthy.

Either that, or Riza was in a bit of a strange mood (according to Roy in later letters) and wanted to mess with him. The most common remark in those instances was usually a post-script at the end that simply said “You’re writing is nearly illegible. Please address this.” 

But it was still something to look forward to and break up his day. And he did notice his handwriting getting better the longer he wrote to Riza and Roy.

And now Roy was planning for him to visit him in Central. Something about an annual hazing ritual, and wanting to see “what Peter was made of”. It was the sort of ominous challenge he had read in Roy’s letters before, the kind that promised something interesting, and usually some kind of lesson.

Winry had almost cleared him for travel. While he still dealt with pain, and he had trouble with extended periods of time on his leg of over three hours, he was getting to a point where it almost felt natural to walk with it, and he didn’t trip himself compensating for the weight of the limb. She had promised that, if he kept to her physical therapy regime and didn’t push himself too hard, he would be able to go to Central at the time Roy was saying he should. Until then, he had started trying to train himself back into shape. He used to be able to run long distance, but all the time taking it easy for recovery had chipped that away. Leashing Ginger, he took her out with him to just jog until he couldn’t breathe easy, ignoring the dull pain he felt when he pushed the port into his leg. It would go away with time, that’s what Ed had said.

When he got back in the mornings, it was usually just in time to help Winry with breakfast or get the kids up.

“You don’t have to push yourself so much.” Winry put a hand on his shoulder as he flipped some of the eggs. “You’ve been healing really fast, but if you let yourself recuperate naturally, you’ll heal better.”

Peter nodded. “I’m just… I’m anxious to get out there. To start learning.”

*

Roy Mustang liked the kid well enough, but he could see through their interactions that he needed to get out from under someone’s tutelage. He would always try and hold himself to their standards if he didn’t have some time on his own to define his own identity. It was one of the things that had done the Elrics some good, but had also done them damage. They held each other, unwittingly, to a standard. Neither had even recognized it, but they had, and Roy had watched it tear at them until they reconciled themselves inside of their expectations.

So, his goal with Peter was to get him out and on his own, learning what he could and making his own decisions as soon as he could. Starting with putting him in charge of the recruit select group that had to do the annual break-in.

He didn’t know who started it (his bet was Havoc), but there was an annual tradition of picking out well-performing cadets and making them break into Roy’s office. Over the last few years, it had become a way to put some fear into the more unruly cadets, as Roy had a tendency to react when he wasn’t expecting it.

Including Peter in this was a way to show the cadets that they also needed to listen to civilians who had more knowledge than they did. The ones that were more likely to act out in training often ended up being the ones that acted like they knew better than anyone that wasn’t wearing a uniform.

Peter had, without realizing it, picked up a lot about Roy’s routine from the letters. Roy had slipped it in on purpose, hoping to plant seeds. With luck, he would come out of this exercise fairly unscathed and ready to go on with his travels. Winry would skin him alive the next time he was in Resembool, but it was a good way to get him started.

“Riza.” Roy put a hand out, waiting for her to grab his and help him up. He knew the immediate area of his office, but he was going towards the cafeteria, and there were too many people in the building to go alone. “What do you think of this?”

“I think it’s a good idea, sir. He is a bright boy.”

“You don’t think I’m pressuring him?”

She guided his hand to the crook of her elbow as she spoke, guiding him down the hallway. “Cafeteria, sir?”

“Yes, please.”

“I don’t think you’d pressure him. You’re asking him to try something, which isn’t a bad thing.”

“I worry it might come across as me asking another person into the military.”

“I think you’re fine.” He could imagine her face, carefully thoughtful and guarded so he wouldn’t extrapolate more from her expression than she wanted him to. “If he joins the military, that’s his choice.

“Personally, though, I don’t think he will. As much as he bonds to people, he likes autonomy.”

Roy let that make him feel better. He didn’t want to push another child into the military. It was a mistake the first time, even with all the good done by Ed and Al. It was a mistake he didn’t want to repeat.

No child needed to see the things soldiers saw.

*

The Soul Stone knew Ginger wouldn’t be the one to go back with Peter. There would be one, she hoped, that would go and help him adjust back. But there was no guarantee. Nothing could ensure that he wouldn’t come back alone with nothing more than what he had on his person at the time Truth deemed him ready to return.

Her siblings were intrigued by Peter. They watched him carefully when they weren’t busy finding their own ways to rebel against their master.

“How do you think he’ll do when he meets them?” Reality was leaning against a rock in the Gauntlet's world. There was a large pool that some of the others snapped out of existence used to watch their world - this one, though, she used with the company of one Happy Hogan, who usually sat in silence and grimaced at the image on screen, to watch Peter. Even when Happy was gone, though, he came back the face of fake nonchalance, worried and asking after Peter's health.

“I don’t know.”

“They’ll want to take him. A majority-human chimera?” Reality shook her head. Happy was watching them from where he was sitting, hanging on every word. “Sister, be careful with this. That’s all I’m saying. I know this reality, and it’s not one that was entirely safe for him from the outset, Truth notwithstanding.”

Soul nodded. She was the youngest of the six, but perhaps that’s why it had been easier for her to break free from the control of the gauntlet, even for a moment – she had been an afterthought of the universe, something unexpected to arise from various planets. A final stone created in a universe that had never meant them to be wielded in the first place.

“Sister, do you think I made a mistake?”

Reality’s eyes took on a red sheen. “I think there are many ways this can play out. I think you did something incredible, and that it could be the difference we need or the thing that seals our fates.

“There’s no way to tell. Time is distant from us, and he wouldn’t want to help anyway. He’s distraught over being sacrificed by his human for Stark.

“But regardless of whether you’ve saved or doomed us, you’ve done what you thought was right. No one can take that away from you. Not even Thanos.”

Soul nodded, looking out into the bleakness that was the Gauntlet’s own world. All those Thanos had erased had come here, but the Stones were trapped in a mirror, barely able to communicate with the sorcerers and mages of various worlds that had ended up there, not even considering the people, who were impossible for Soul to reach.

“I hope I made the right choice.”

“I hope so, too.”

*

Peter liked to ignore the dreams, but he couldn’t deny them. The dreams where he saw May and Tony laughing together, or May meeting up with Tony’s friend, Colonel Rhodes, for coffee.

It was like a fantasy world he knew could never come true, and it was like torture watching it. He wished he could be there, hug his aunt, smile with Tony and laugh at some dumb joke Ned had told. But, every time he tried to join the conversation or reach out, the entire scene blurred out and changed. Sometimes it changed to one of Truth, condescending to him even from beyond his own world and mocking him for his choices. Sometimes it was the Vulture, the face of the man he had pulled from wreckage reaching for him and pulling him in, instead, leaving him to a death by fire.

Overall, not a pleasant experience.

So, he spent half his night getting sleep he desperately needed, and the other half reading one of the books Ed had lent him, or pouring over a piece of machinery in Winry’s lab. Usually scraps, in that case, so he could disassemble and reassemble them as he wished and learn about how they worked in the scheme of the whole limb.

He had gotten accustomed to having oil caked underneath his nails all the time, and having cuts and burns from working with the metal. A lot of them, while healing quickly, left their own little marks across his hands and arms. Winry had them too, and she had shown him an ointment he could make to take some of the sting away, especially when it was bad or he had worked too long, and the cuts were more spread.

His shirts, all borrowed from Ed with the assurance he could ruin them as much as he wanted, because Ed had done worse to plenty of shirts and pants when he was a teenager, had small burn marks or holes in them from the work, too. The pants, all of which were black, had permanent, ever-growing oil stains. Not that people could see them, given they blended in with the black, and even the washed-out ones were starting to take on the color of oil without too much to suggest they were ever another color.

He took to baking bread in the mornings, too, so that it was one less thing someone else had to do. The repetitive motion of kneading the dough was relaxing, and there was enough that went into it, despite its simplicity, to keep his mind occupied. He would make the dough before he would work, and he would leave it to rise. When his body started to ache from being hunched over in one position too long and he absolutely had to move, he would go work with the bread again, throwing it in the oven to bake and staying up there. Usually, the morning light was just starting to come in the windows, and he would read.

All to distract him from his dreams. He was getting better at it, too. He was being productive with his anxiety, something he had always tried to learn, but never managed before.

Winry came down the stairs, starting breakfast as he pulled the bread out. Between the five of them, they went through it pretty quickly, and he helped her keep the stuff for it well-stocked with their regular trips to the market.

“You slept longer last night.”

“Have I been waking you guys?” Peter looked up from his book. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no. The first night or two, you did, but we got used to it. You just look more rested than usual.” She put a hand in his hair, and it felt almost like he was back home again. “I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks, Winry.”

She moved to start breakfast, inviting him to help.

The best thing he had found to help cope with the nightmares, by far, had been cooking with Winry.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter goes to Central, and in the mean time does a favor for Roy.

His travel to Central was cemented by the end of the month, and by the middle of the next, he was on a train, headed that way. Peter shifted a bit in his seat, glancing at his bag. He had stocked it with clothes, the books he was reading with Ed, and a small repair kit for his leg. He had started really getting into the engineering aspect of automail now that he had learned the basics, and he had started working out some ideas to use on his own leg, once everything was fully recovered.

The train ride was much longer than ones he had made in the past – even longer than the flight to Berlin had been, given Tony had some of the fastest equipment available to him. He found himself sleeping part of it, but mostly keeping his mind occupied via reading and notetaking. If he couldn’t get Roy to answer his questions, he could ask Ed when he got back to Resembool. Eventually.

It had been hinted at him by Ed that he might use this as an opportunity to start his travels. He would already be out of the Eastern Sector, and he would have a chance to talk to people, get an idea of where to look for information. He could access civilian portions of the military library – much more of which was becoming accessible to civilians with every passing months, as Roy pushed the staff to comb through and declassify what they could – to see if anyone else had theories about dimensional alchemy.

Peter had his own questions, too, that going to the library and studying up would answer. He didn’t know a lot about this world, or about Amestris. Ed and he had focused on alchemy, which had its own history (which was fascinating), and Winry had focused on automail creation, not so much on the actual history of it.

Given that, he hoped he could get some knowledge about the history, if not the culture.

He glanced out the window. He had a few more hours to go on this train.

*

Roy listened to Riza as she read through the latest proposal for a treaty with Creta. He had been working hard to pull back from the war-mongering reputation Amestris had been known for under Bradley. If he had to go to war, he wanted it to be for a reason. If he worked with other countries for peace, he would have allies in the future, should he need them.

Unfortunately, the last half century of Bradley’s rule had done its own deep and painful damage. The best way to start peace talks was to remove troops from the borders and scale back the presence within Table City, but there was no way he could do that until he had something more concrete. Creta, for all the history between Amestris, had been willing to start small. Their leader, it would seem, had tired of the constant wars and wanted to see some form of progress.

He was looking forward to the hazing of the new troops. It was a nice, yearly break from the constant trudge through the actual process of being the leader of a country. He might have hated paperwork and the like before, but now that he couldn’t even _see_ it, he found it more annoying. Largely because Riza would read it to him, meaning he couldn’t escape it.

“Creta, in return, will open the door to humanitarian pursuits from Amestrian private citizens, as well as Amestrian non-governmental organizations.” Riza took a breath. He loved her voice before, but hearing it so often made him love it more, even if it was this kind of material. “This will happen within the month of half of Amestrian soldiers being removed from Table City.”

Roy put up a hand, a shared signal that they had developed to pause where they were in the current document so they could pick apart pieces of it. “Wait. They’re willing to open the door for humanitarian aid? I thought the prince said that was off the table.”

There was the sound of rustling papers as Riza rescanned the document. “That’s what it says. Should I include an inquiry into the change in the response?”

Roy shook his head. “I don’t think so. There’s something going on in Drachma. They’re being quiet and secretive about it, but I don’t think things are looking good for them right now. It would be best to have some allies in case they decide to use an external war to pull themselves together.”

“Alright.” Sometime in their second year of marriage, the ‘yes, sirs’ had gone out the window and had become more casual when they were alone in the office. Roy was glad for that – he spent enough time being the public face of Amestris, he liked being able to relax in his office with Riza.

“There’s more on the humanitarian aid stipulations further in the document. Would you like to skip ahead, get some clarity and then move on?”

Roy considered it. “Alright. How far ahead?”

“Three sections.”

Roy settled into his chair a bit, preparing himself. They had several more hours of this to complete before he would get to talk to Peter again, and he had every intention of having as much done as he could, so he could devote more of his attention on the young man without worrying about the documents from Creta.

*

Peter’s first impression of Central City was that it was busy. He had spent so much time in the last few months in the quietest town he had ever been in, and now he was thrown headlong into a city environment again.

It was nice, but it was surprisingly stressful.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Peter waved at a woman to his right. “I just need a little help. Can you point me towards…”

 And she was gone. She had smiled and shook her head, gesturing towards her ears before moving away and heading in a different direction. Peter smiled, anyway, deciding to just keep walking until he eventually found his way to where he was supposed to be.

The central headquarters was easy to see, once he got close enough. It was a long, institutional looking building, the only one he’d seen so far of its kind.

“I’m looking for-“

Peter got cut off by Riza. “Good, you’re here.” She smiled, looking as kind as ever. “I was worried you had gotten lost.”

“I did, for a bit. Sorry about that.”

She gestured for him to follow her. “That’s more than alright. For your first time in the city, you found your way around remarkably well.”

Peter smiled at her as they went up several flights of stairs. “I like Central. I grew up in a city, and I kinda missed the bustle.”

Riza laughed. Most people who came in from some of the outskirts of Amestrian cities and towns tended towards resenting the noise. “That’s one way to think of it.”

The two walked through the upper floors in relative silence. The looks he got from the people around them made Peter a bit uncomfortable.

Riza fell back a bit, whispering to him, “It’s because your clothes remind them of Ed.”

“Huh?”

“Those are Ed’s old things, right?”

Peter nodded.

“Ed used to work as a State Alchemist. A lot of the people currently in the upper levels of the government used to work with him. It’s a little strange to see someone else walking around looking like him. That’s all.”

“Should I not have worn this?”

Riza shrugs. “I guess that’s up to you, isn’t it?” She smiled. “You’re fine, if you’re wondering. It makes sense to use Ed’s old things – they’re durable, and the black fabric hides the oil stains from the automail.”

Peter faltered a second. “Is that why he had so much black?”

Riza laughed. “He never said as much, but we all knew. He was pretty obvious about it, even if he didn’t mean to be.”

Peter laughed with her, starting to relax. He forgot how nice Riza and Roy were beneath their strict facades. It made sense, given their professions were so public. “Thanks, General.”

“Please, it’s Riza.”

Peter smiled. “Thanks, Riza.”

*

Roy moved his head towards the door as it opened. Peter’s footsteps were heavier than Riza’s, but still lighter than the average male’s. Interesting.

“Glad you made it.” Roy gestured to the front of his desk. “Please take a seat.”

Riza closed the door, walking, by the sounds of her steps, to her normal seat at her own desk.

“Welcome to Central.”

“Thanks for bringing me out.”

There was a stiff silence, something awkward and unlike the vivacious kid from the letters. “Did you have something you wanted to start with?”

“Um…” Peter shifted a bit in his seat. “I guess…” He took a breath, and Mustang let himself feel a moment of pride for Peter. Peter, though he had his moments, tended towards indecisiveness. He wanted to please, and it made him overthink his decisions. “I want to start with history. History of alchemy, history of this world. Anything. But I can’t move through the world not understanding how it got here.”

“You might find some things you’re not comfortable with. You might find information about myself or Ed that you don’t think is very flattering.”

“I don’t care. I need to know. I don’t know… I don’t know what’s going to happen to me, but I’m stuck here for now, and I want to know as much as I can while I’m here.”

Mustang nodded. “Alright. You’ll have access to the declassified sections of the library – anything else you need, you can talk to me or Hawkeye about and we can see about getting you access. I have one thing I need you to do for me though.”

“Equivalent Exchange, right?”

Mustang forced a bit of a smirk, hoping Hawkeye didn’t look over and see how much it bothered him to hear that from the mouth of another child. “Something like that.”

“Alright. I’ll help out. What do you need?”

*

Fuery sighed, looking at this year’s group. The recruits they were getting were more and more frequently powerful politicians’ sons or daughters (though it was usually the sons with the attitude problems) or legacies. While the outer areas, especially the Northern and Western Areas, got more civilians, Central seemed to view military service as a step to a higher career in politics. What was unfortunate was they weren’t often wrong. Politicians’ kids only did the minimum, but it was enough to list it on a resume and get support from people in Central. There was little consideration for what might be actually valuable if these kids ever had to make decisions regarding the military.

Fuery thanked whatever gods there may or may not have been every day that Roy kept a tight ship running in the upper tiers of the government – parts these kids were less likely to see. He also had the distinct pleasure of passing them off to the more experienced, true soldiers of the Central group. They kept the ritual under tight lips, and it paid off every year. The worst of the worst suddenly became easily teachable and didn’t push back against their orders as much.

Push back was good. Questioning command, in any non-combat setting, was even encouraged under Mustang. But doing it just to be contrary was different than checking the ethics of something or the reasoning of an action. Fuery was getting pretty sick of some of the “why should I bother” type questions that were becoming too common. A little humiliation and late night adventure was usually enough to bring down the egos all around.

But when he heard Roy had introduced another type of test into it this year? Fuery was ecstatic. The usual trick was hard enough, but when Mustang threw a variable in, it usually was meant to establish a metric for who would not be fit for either field duty or more important work within the military.

He just didn’t expect it to be a freaking kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hey all!_
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! There's going to be a small interlude out of Central coming up, then some more time _in_ Central, but that's all I'm gonna tell you for now.
> 
> Thanks for commenting/kudos/etc! They make my day!
> 
> [Come check me out on tumblr!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter is used to help haze some new recruits. He isn't happy about it, but he's also not complaining.

The last thing Peter had expected to get roped into was a hazing break in for new recruits of the military. Though, considering Roy’s own tendency towards pettiness (that he admitted, but only ever verbally so he could deny it later), it made sense.

The ones he was with weren’t like some of the more down-to-earth military people he’d met on the train. Having crossed paths with a couple of soldiers when the trains were switching once they left the Eastern Sector, he had taken the opportunity to chat, and learned that a lot the Amestrian military strength came from alchemy itself, though Mustang had been scaling that back a bit in favor of conventional power.

These ‘soldiers’ were younger, by a lot, and a lot of them said they came from Central. Peter wasn’t sure if that was where the arrogance was coming from, or if there was something he was missing, but he knew that he didn’t really like them. Several reminded him of Flash – the kind of kid that would ride his father’s coattails until the day he died, and then continue reaping the benefits of his father’s work thereafter. So, when he was told they were breaking into Mustang’s office – a room none of them had ever been in, apparently, and several didn’t even have a guess as to where it was – and he was beginning to wonder if Mustang had asked him to help with this for a reason.

While at first it had seemed like a harmless joke – “oh, yeah, help these recruits break into my office without getting caught. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure the guards are lax tomorrow” – he was now looking at doing this to succeed, even if he succeeded alone.

Don’t get him wrong – he would try to work with the team, if he could get them to listen longer than four seconds to anything anyone else said – but a part of him, one that hadn’t been around much before Amestris and that was a touch more cynical than he typically cared for, knew that if push came to shove, he could do it on his own.

“Okay, let’s break up into skills.”

“Why, though?” Theo was the tallest and broadest of the group and had used that stature to try and establish himself as leader. “All we have to do is get to the office, right? So why break up into groups?”

“We have ten people. If we split up by skill types, we can make a plan that means none of us get caught.” Peter glanced around, looking for agreement. The only one he had was the mousier looking boy, likely pressured into a military career by his family if he had to guess. “A large group will be noticed before one or two people walking around.”

Theo gave him a look, but he was clearly considering it. If he ceded to what Peter had suggested, there was every chance that Peter could use the precedent and get another concession out of him later, if necessary.

It took a moment, but Theo finally answered. “I don’t like it.”

Peter scowled. “We could put it to a vote right now.”

“We aren’t putting it to a vote. We’re going as a group, and we’re getting a lay of the land.”

This was going to end horribly.

*

The first time his spider-sense went off, he barely managed to get the one that had agreed with him earlier to back into an alcove. The others had scattered while guards chased them down.

“How’d you know he was coming?”

“I’m cool like that.”

It was a horrible answer, but he wasn’t about to spill his secrets to some guy he’d never met. The two of them waited a moment, listening for anymore guards before darting down the hallway they were in.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I’ve got an idea, yeah.”

“Care to share?”

Peter waited until he had found a definitely empty office before pulling him into it and shutting the door, leaving the lights off, just in case. There were still some people around, mostly upper-level officials that were working late, though. Given they worked on the upper floors of the building, Peter wasn’t about to risk a nosy guard investigating a light that happened to be on.

“What do you know that you aren’t telling anyone?”

Peter ignored the question, instead sticking his hand out. “I’m Peter Parker. Pleased to meet you.”

The kid rolled his eyes. “I’m Carlan.”

Peter nodded. That was the nicest any of that group had been, so he’d take it. “Alright, so do you think they’ve incarcerated them anywhere, or do you think they’ve just been kicked out of the building?”

Carlan seemed taken aback at being asked what he thought of the plan. “I mean, it would make sense to incarcerate them. They did break the law, being here after hours without authorization.”

“Would that be here, or would they be taken off grounds for that?”

“I don’t know.” Carlan shrugged. “My dad doesn’t work here, he’s in charge of the Southern Command.”

A legacy, then. And, like Peter had predicted, probably pressured into the military.

“Okay. We’re going to have to see about getting them out, but only if they’re here.”

Carlan rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even want to _do_ this. Lieutenant Colonel Fuery just told me I’d been picked for a special assignment – how was I supposed to know it was a hazing thing?”

The cynic in Peter was coming back again. _Because you’re still a recruit, a cadet. You aren’t a full soldier yet, why would you be on special assignment?_

Evidently, he had picked up more information about military life from Roy’s letters and talking to Ed than he’d originally thought. Even if Winry wouldn’t kill him for joining the military, he still didn’t think he would. Too much of what he heard made him think it wouldn’t be worth it, even for the access to information.

But he had to focus on the task at hand. He had a guy who might be book-smart, but clearly didn’t have much in the way of life experience, and his own raw skills and knowledge. He wasn’t cocky enough to think that if he ran into any alchemists here he would win that fight – maybe if he clung to the walls with his spider abilities, but he still hadn’t worked out how to do that when one limb was no longer able to grab on. His balance would be too different from what he was used to if he tried that, and he wasn’t keen on trying its seriously for the first time in combat.

“Do you have any idea where they would be held?”

Carlan shook his head. “Again, I’ve only been to Central a few times.”

Peter sighed. “Alright, then. We’re going to find some guards and spy on them, see what we can get. We meet back here in twenty minutes, and if we don’t have any information, we leave them behind. Got it?”

“Why only twenty minutes? If we’re gonna rescue them, we might need more time to get information.”

“The longer we’re in here, the more likely we get caught. So, we meet here in twenty minutes. Like I said, we might have to leave them behind.”

Carlan scowled. “Whatever, civie.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Look, I get you don’t want to leave anyone behind, or whatever, but if they’re somewhere else, we can’t go get them, then come back. It’ll be harder to get out and back in than it will be to do what we came here to do then run out and get them.”

Carlan seemed taken aback that Peter had come back so harshly. Peter was too, but he refused to show it. If he could hold his ground on this, he could probably help at least Carlan get through this okay. If Theo and his crew didn’t make it out so hot? Well, Mustang had said no one would get injured, just taken down a peg or two. “Yeah. Okay. Yeah.”

Peter nodded. “You take the Northern Corridor. It’s out and to your left. I’ll grab the Eastern one. Memorize landmarks and make your way back here.”

A trick he had picked up as Spider-Man from before Tony giving him the suit, and since he had started using it, he had reduced how frequently he got seriously lost in the middle of the night in New York.

Carlan didn’t respond, just followed the orders without another question. Peter didn’t know how he felt about his first impression, but he did know that he wanted to succeed at this. He didn’t know why, or when he started getting so competitive, but it was brewing just under the surface.

So, he went down the Eastern corridor and started paying attention for the sounds of guards.

*

By the time they regrouped, Peter had only the slightest bit of information, and it was that the others had, indeed, been taken out of the building. They were rounded up and detained outside – from what he heard it was both to embarrass them a bit in the morning, but also to lure out “the other two”. Good to know the others had sold them out.

Peter had argued with Carlan on that one for a while – had almost gotten caught, too – but ultimately they decided to stick to the original plan. They would get the others out later, after they got into Roy’s office.

Now, however, they had made it undetected to the upper levels of the building. Roy’s promise had been kept – the guards had been significantly more relaxed about everything than they would normally be – but they had been getting more diligent by the floor. It was like a video game, though Peter was sure Roy had designed it that way. He likely wanted to lull the other cadets into a false sense of security before upping the ante as they tried to get to his office.

Finally, they managed to get up the last set of stairs to the top floor.

“Roy’s office is this way.”

“You really shouldn’t call him by his first name, you know.”

“Why not?”

“He’s the leader of the country!”

“So? He’s still human.” Peter shrugged. “Besides, that’s how he introduced himself to me.”

While it had been funny, back in New York, to keep calling Tony ‘Mister Stark’, it had put something unspoken between them. They couldn’t talk as honestly because of how long Peter _had_ called him that out of reverence. He _liked_ what he had with Roy – the casual camaraderie mixed with the advice the older man was known to impart. He didn’t want that being tainted because he used Roy’s title all the time. Besides, it had become clear for Roy that the title wasn’t what mattered to him. He wasn’t Fuhrer in Amestris just so he could say he was or just for the power – he was in it for the long haul, for what he could do for the people. There was no point in pushing a title Roy largely considered honorary on him, at this point, in Peter’s mind.

So, he ignored Carlan’s final protest on the matter and pushed forward. “I can’t pick locks.”

Carlan edged forward, muttering. “I’ve got it. I used to sneak into my brother’s room all the time and steal his books. When he moved out, I started reading my sister’s.”

He moved the implement around a bit. “Hers were far more interesting – they were science books.”

Peter understood talking when you were nervous. Hell, he did it. He just never realized how much he may have given away when he did it. Hearing Carlan talk about his sister and brother, he wondered what pieces of information he had accidentally dropped that could lead back to him or to May.

He hoped it had never been enough to warrant that. If it had, he hoped May wouldn’t get caught in anything while he was so far away he couldn’t be there for her. He wanted to think that Tony would look after her, but he knew that there was every chance that he had been dusted too.

But Peter hadn’t been dusted, had he? He had been sent somewhere else, even when he might not have been the best candidate for it. And wasn’t that the worst of it – he wasn’t even the best for this. Someone else, someone with more experience or knowledge…

He had to keep going. He couldn’t focus on that, or he would spiral. He was making progress, and he would keep doing so until he was back home, in May’s arms.

*

His spider-sense went off less than a second before the door was fully open, but it meant he managed to tackle Carlan to the ground as the edge of heat licked the top of their heads.

“Good for you both.” Mustang – and it was a clear distinction from the man he had come to know as Roy – stood, a smirk across his face. “Carlan Decamer, correct?”

“Correct, sir.”

“You understand what led to your success in this exercise?”

Carlan stumbled over himself. “Not really, sir. It seems like it was luck.”

“That was part of it.” Roy nodded. Peter could see how he had gotten away with the duality – he blended the two sides of himself well. “But the larger part of it was you were cooperative with the civilian that had more information.”

“How do you know that, though?”

“I’m taking an educated guess that, even if you didn’t agree on the strategy, you at least recognized that Peter here had some insider information?”

Carlan nodded before catching himself. “Yes, sir.”

“If we go to war again, you may be working with locals that can help you accomplish your mission. Your compatriots didn’t pay attention to our analogous local, meaning they got themselves caught. In a battlefield situation, this could have ended horrifically, which is why we will be keeping them tied out there until morning – a little humiliation should knock them down a peg or two.”

Figures Peter had been part of some lesson. Either way, the entire exercise had been fun – he had never tried breaking in. Usually, he had been the one stopping a break-in that was happening. He didn’t think he’d ever need the skill, but it was nice to know that, at least in this case, he did pretty well.

“Decamer, you’re dismissed. I’ve a few things to talk to Peter about, and then I’ll be sending him on his way as well.”

“Yes, sir.” Carlan saluted Roy before he left.

“You were saying, Roy?”

The smile on his face shouldn’t have been nearly that gleeful, but Peter kind of understood – Roy’s plan had been a success. Anyone would want to celebrate that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's already 10 PM where I am and I still have some reading to do for class, so I didn't edit this chapter. Sorry about that! 
> 
> Anywho, [come say hi!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has learned a lot about alchemy. He has a lot to learn about human hubris.

Peter’s time in Central wrapped up all too soon, but instead of going back to Resembool, he took the opportunity to go in the opposite direction. He went to the Western Sector, exploring different towns and cities, delving into their libraries almost as quickly as he did the local hangouts. He had gotten good at spotting both, and it meant he had a lot more interesting of an experience every time he went somewhere new.

His mechanics’ skills did come in handy. He didn’t usually get enough to cover train fare, but he was able to get a night in a room and hot meals, so he wasn’t complaining.

It was something he hadn’t even noticed, the way he started walking slightly straighter, speaking smoother, and feeling more at ease as he travelled. His clothes were wearing down, but that was a fact of the lifestyle he was leading. He was seventeen, alone, but surrounded by knowledge, information, and people.

He was in a smaller city about twenty miles south of West City. The pub/inn he had found himself in had welcomed him for the night if he agreed to do some maintenance around the place. Peter had learned a lot about mechanic work from Tony, then from Winry, and now from just sheer happenstance.

The longer he did it, the less he was reminded of his old world, though. The more he did it, the more it became about his hands doing the work, his mind picking apart the problem and making it simpler, and less about the people he had left behind, the ones that had helped him start learning the skills. It was bittersweet, though Peter wasn’t the one to originally put the word to it. That was the very parental man that ran the inn. Peter was one of several kids, both travelers and locals, that the man had offered space to in exchange for work.

“Keeps me from having to pay for it, and it keeps you kids fed and warm. Now get to work and then get some rest. Whatever you don’t get done today you can do in the morning,” he had said.

Peter had kept working through quite a bit of the night until the owner had come down and told him in no uncertain terms that he needed rest, and he better get some.

That was why he had the chance to dream that night. Dream about May and Colonel Rhodes, closer than they were in his last dream, and Tony and Pepper holding a little girl.

His dreams never had sound, only ever a visual component. He had wondered once, briefly, if it might be a glimpse into what Mister Stark and May were living – a last gift from the Soul Stone, in a way – but had dismissed it. She had already given herself up for him, there was no way she would have done something like that, too.

The dream changed, though, and soon there was sound. A painful sound, one of a keening, hazarding cry that made Peter’s skin crawl and his blood race. He got a glimpse of Truth before he was woken up, realizing the sound was coming from outside. He raced down the stairs, colliding with the three others staying the night on work arrangements, only to get outside in time to see a strange creature – the source of the sound, evidently – lumbering through the street, it’s joints warping and twisting with every movement in a way that could not have been at all comfortable or painless.

Peter stood frozen to the spot, watching as it ran down the street further, coming in contact with people. No matter what anyone did to try to keep it from rampaging, it seemed only ready to tear through West City on whatever it had decided its mission was.

It had a reptilian head, but there was fur in splotches around the scales. The eyes weren’t moving in tandem with one another, and didn’t look alike from the glimpses Peter had gotten. Its jaw and skull didn’t match up well, and it’s teeth were a mishmash of… Peter wasn’t even sure they were teeth. The creature, on the whole, was like a strange hybrid of monsters from Dungeons and Dragons,

He was still frozen to the spot with the other three when the owner of the inn started pulling them in. Peter took a last glance at the creature, watching it trample through and over a woman trying to push her child out of the road.

“NO!”

He had grown up an orphan. He knew that reality like the back of his hand, even with May and Ben there to help him.. He might be able to get the woman to a hospital, though, if he was fast enough. He pulled away from the man’s hands and ran towards her, dodging the swipe of one of the creature’s legs and the tail, trying to get to the woman. He made it to her with barely enough time to get her through the door of the house, to the people reaching out for her. Once Peter was out of sight of the thing, it continued running through West City, wreaking havoc as it went.

The woman was weeping, and her legs were shattered. The left one had been smashed through, just below the knee, while the right one went further up, almost as high as Peter’s own injury.

“It’s alright, ma’am. It’s alright.”

He got her down on a table that the grandmother had cleared off. He was so glad for the basic medical training Winry had given him. He would be going back in a few months, finishing out some of his work with her and learning more, especially for the actual process of automail installation, but for now he had just enough he would be able to keep this woman alive until a doctor showed up.

“Can someone get me hot water and bandages? And any kind of healing creams or things you have in the house?” Peter looked up. “And someone go get a doctor!”

The elder woman, who looked like this woman’s future self, nodded and pushed the child out of the room. “Consider it done.”

*

Happy watched the image at the bottom of the small pool. There were a couple of them across the weird world the Stones had set up to house all the people and animals killed by Thanos. They tracked whoever you wanted them to, but Happy always used this one for Peter. He had another one to keep track of Tony and Pepper in, but he wanted this one – a more private one – to keep an eye on the kid he liked to pretend to hate.

God, he hoped the kid didn’t go through the rest of his life thinking Happy hated him.

He watched as Peter moved to help the woman, barely registering the blood on his hands and clothes or the people weeping around him. He had changed from holding the wounds as much as he could to assisting the doctor, taking orders as they were given.

It was the kind of instantaneous compliance Tony had never been able to get out of Peter, but Happy considered the difference in the situation. Peter had always been someone who wanted to help – it made sense he took orders when he was helping. Thinking on it some more, Happy wondered how much of the pain and injury done to Peter the last few years could have been avoided by ordering Peter during battle instead of keeping him on the sidelines or out of it entirely.

The action around the woman started to slow down, and Peter was soon being ushered by the elder woman to the living room of the home. She sat him down and started peeling at his shirt, passing him a different one, talking to him quickly, though Happy couldn’t hear it at all.

Peter was passed a ragged cloth to wipe the worst of the blood off his hands. He spoke to the older woman, who smiled at whatever he had said, before putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking her head.

“He’s a good man.”

“He’s a kid.”

The Soul Stone liked to watch Peter as well. Despite everything she had to tend to, she made time every day to check on him, much like Happy did.

Watching Peter, Tony, and Pepper wasn’t all he did. He worked with others in the stone, he helped get things in their little happenstance, makeshift society working. But at the end of the day, it was nice to check in on them and make sure they were still breathing. Stephen Strange, as much of an asshole as he seemed to be, did too, on occasion.

“He’s going to be okay, right?”

“That depends on him.”

He didn’t like that answer at all, but he would have to take it. Happy shook his head as he watched Peter’s exhaustion catch up with him, and he fell asleep on the couch he had been sat on. The older woman came in to hand him the now wet, but significantly less blood-stained shirt, only to laugh at the sight she found.

“He’s a good man.”

This time, Happy didn’t correct her.

*

When Peter woke up, it was to Esme – the mother of the woman from the street – shaking his shoulder.

“I prepared breakfast. Please, join us.”

“Oh, um…” Peter shifted a bit. “Thank you.”

His stuff was still at the inn down the street, but he would grab it later. He followed Esme in to the kitchen, helping where he could. He learned a lot about Esme’s background as they chatted – she had denied automail for her daughter, but it had been not only because she was unconscious at the time and couldn’t say whether she wanted it, but because Esme’s son had been in the military. A shoddy job of automail had caused him to lose his life when it stopped working in the middle of a retreat from a firefight.

She had looked at Peter’s and smiled, patting it. “With luck, may yours never leave you in that situation.”

“Thanks…”

“Come now. Jamie’s room is upstairs and to your left. Go and knock, I’ll set the table.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

 *

Truth watched on, pleased that the boy seemed to be getting the hang of it. He wasn’t entirely on his own yet – he was still clinging to that which made people in his past like him, not realizing that plenty of people were liking him just fine as he came to them – a young man filled with promise and a desire to help.

He could feel it, though. The subtle chipping at edges of Peter’s psyche. The pieces born of a need to keep those close to him in his life were fading – the months spent with the Elrics and then the time communicating via letter with Roy Mustang seemed to have done some good. He was gaining some independence through sheer exposure to things like learning to cook and how to fix and build his automail himself.

There was a protective piece of him that was deeply engrained. No doubt it would always be there, just clinging to the sides of Peter’s being and coming out in such a way that would see Peter throwing himself headlong into danger for years to come. There had always been a piece of it, though, that clung on. That held fast to whoever it was Peter had attached to. It was a sign of youth and immaturity, but one that Truth knew all too well might end up destroying Peter if he were to walk into his next fight with this Thanos still carrying it. He would attach himself to someone and make a reckless decision because of it.

Truth had said Peter needed to learn to stand on his own. After nearly a year, it seemed he was finally moving in that direction.

Humanity, writ large, was altruistic. This was something Truth had come to accept. Despite their wars and their fights and squabbles, they tried to help each other. A grieving neighbor might be sent a few nights of dinner. A friend helping to move someone across the country, never voicing a word of complaint. A poor family taking in a homeless child. These were all occurrences Truth had witnessed from humanity. He was aware of them, even as he watched through the portion of him that was attached to Peter’s soul.

Truth was a piece of humanity that was power and struggle, a constant balance between the two. He wouldn’t let people see into him without losing something of their own, just as he wouldn’t let Peter gain access to his gate and learn alchemy without paying a price. He knew what happened when people had too much power and forgot the feeling of struggle, just as he knew what happened when people struggled and felt continually powerless. Neither side of the equation was favorable in extremes.

So, he watched, pleased with his decision regarding Peter. Maybe it would work out just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come say hi!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)
> 
> If anyone wants to like... beta this?... I'm about 1-2 chapters ahead on this usually and 1 chapter ahead on Stand Apart, so it'd be kinda demanding. I'm considering getting a beta for this, just because of how often I end up not able to edit because of school. 
> 
> Anyway! I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading, commenting, and your kudos!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter has yet another encounter with chimeras.

The innkeeper gave him a small smile, and a terse warning about running into danger when he walked in the next day. His stuff was waiting by the counter with a small lunch wrapped up and train fare.

“Forget the work. It’ll get done – but something tells me you have some research to do, little alchemist.”

The use of alchemy was something he was still getting used to, but he enjoyed it immensely. Even if he didn’t need to, he still liked drawing out the circles. And just because he didn’t have to didn’t mean he shouldn’t – understanding the ins and outs of symbol theory meant that when he was doing it on the fly, he was able to devote less time to the complexities of alchemic law and more to the mathematics he needed to do.

The one thing he hadn’t managed yet was making his web fluid with alchemy. He had tried a couple times without the circle, and those had ended disastrously. He had even experienced a few rebounds – the worst instance had his hands and arms covered in growing bits of web for a few days. Now, he was using the circle to guide the transmutation until he had it figured out.

There was a lot that went into alchemy. It was incredibly complex, but that was half the fun of it.

Even so, it was nice to be called ‘alchemist’. It was something he had earned through all kinds of work. It wasn’t a nickname borne out of powers granted by a spider bite, or a suit because he was useful, or even the kind of heartfelt name he picked up from May and Ben by virtue of being their child.

No, alchemist was a statement. It meant he had learned and understood the chemistry of the world with enough efficacy so as to be able to manipulate it.

He didn’t want to be reliant on alchemy – Ed and Roy had warned him against it, heavily so – but he did like that he was being acknowledged for his abilities, even so.

“Thanks for watching my stuff, sir!”

“You’re welcome.” He shook his head. “Now get running, before you miss the cheap train. And remember me if you’re ever in town again, yeah?”

“Absolutely!”

Peter took his advice – he had quite the distance to go if he wanted to be there on time for the early train – and ran, clutching his food and bag close to him.

*

The train ride back to Central got halted on the border of the Western Sector and the Central Sector. The entire train was evacuated and soldiers started searching it, making noises about “chimera smuggling” as they escorted people off and towards a small station.

“Your fare will be compensated, but we are halting all trains to and from Central for the next few days. Should you have any urgent business in Central, you will have to arrange your own transportation.”

Well that threw a wrench in things. He had heard of chimeras – they were mentioned in most advanced alchemy textbooks, but there was something between a caution and a taboo on actually studying them. They frightened people unfamiliar with the theory, and based on some of the historical reading he’d done (mostly recent history, since that would likely be most relevant in his day to day life), they had also been a point of contention after the arrest of Shou Tucker.

An arrest Ed had been pivotal in, apparently.

Roy hadn’t been kidding about finding some unflattering things about himself and Ed in the history sections. There was plenty of information about them in the history books – and plenty of people who debated whether or not the two of them had acted unethically. Peter had made a note to talk to Ed about it the next time he saw him, but only if he was willing.

Even so, hearing about potential chimera smuggling had his entire system on alert – an alert he knew from experience wouldn’t go away unless he investigated too. Roy would have his head for it, if Winry and Ed didn’t beat him to it, but there was something in the idea of first combining animals – which couldn’t consent to the procedure, a huge ethical debate amongst most alchemists, whether they worked in bioalchemy or not – and then smuggling them across the country.

The laws surrounding alchemy that weren’t built into the practice dictated that there had to be permits for chimera study. The holder would be checked on every few weeks to every few months at random to ensure they weren’t doing anything outside of the bounds of their permit. Riza had told him it was one of the first laws Roy had established upon taking office – he didn’t want another Shou Tucker. He didn’t want alchemists so drunk on the power of alchemy and the resources the state was willing to give them for research that they broke the bonds of what was considered ethical or appropriate.

Peter snuck around the soldiers, which was surprisingly easy, all things considered. Getting around them, meant being able to walk the length of the train. He didn’t know what exactly to look for – he hadn’t busted up many smuggling rings before (if he wasn’t mistaken, he hadn’t busted _any_ smuggling rings before), and now he was adding in that he had to look for chimeras.

He was going to have to rely on his senses for this one.

*

Walking along the train didn’t do anything to help him find information, so instead he was left with only one option – digging up information on his own. His best bet would have been the soldiers, but they had already gone back to their own headquarters, which Peter didn’t have a location for. The train was moved within a few hours to a shipping yard, where it was roped off for investigation.

The train yard was fairly empty by the time Peter decided to have another look, but that didn’t do anything to relieve the atmosphere. If anything, it added more to it than having people around would have. He was suddenly reminded of every crime drama that Ben had liked that had scenes in shipping and train yards that involved shoot-outs or a criminal lurking behind the corner and waiting to get the jump on the hero.

Not exactly a good time to have those memories, but he couldn’t stop them either.

So, instead, he started digging around in the train itself. He dug through storage compartments – where luggage had been tagged to be returned, but was being held until everything was gone through – and passenger compartments alike. The shipping compartments were the furthest from the actual locomotive, though. By the time he was back there, Peter wondered why he didn’t check there first.

It was too late, though, because he had other problems to deal with. Namely, a smaller version of that creature from the city.

It didn’t look exactly alike. No, this one was much smaller. The size of a cat, even. The head was thick and mottled, the fur or hair – whichever it was, Peter couldn’t really tell – along the back and down the neck matted by what looked oddly like blood. The tale wasn’t covered in fur – that part had what looked like a scale-skin combination that would have seemed like a bad infection if Peter didn’t know better.

The longer he looked at it, the easier it was to see that there were multiple animals taking up one body. Or, there were multiple features of animals. He wasn’t sure what was more accurate, all he knew was that he didn’t like it. The creature looked at him, its eyes feeling like an indictment upon him.

This was a chimera. The thing near Western City had been a chimera. This was what people talked about when they talked about abominations. Alchemy had created this, but there wasn’t a way for alchemy to undo it. The animal let out a pathetic mewl, edging closer to the edge of its cage and sniffing Peter’s hand. Peter stretched it out, not even realizing what he was doing until it started rubbing up against him.

It had the base of a cat, as far as Peter could tell. Whatever comforts he could give it, he would.

Peter didn’t know how long he sat there petting the chimera. It seemed taken with him, though, and as he stood to leave, it mewled after him.

Sometimes, it sucked having a big heart. Peter looked down at the chimera, his body already knowing the decision he was going to make before his mind caught up. His hands were fiddling with the lock, and within moments, the cat – even if it was a chimera, its personality was still a cat, which, as far as Peter could tell, meant its mind and soul were still those of a cat – had walked towards him, rubbing up against his body.

“Come on, bud.” Peter eased the cat-thing towards his bag. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Peter made sure not to look at the other chimeras as he left. There were only a few – enough that he wondered how the soldiers hadn’t found them – but he knew if he looked he would want to save them all. He couldn’t do that – he didn’t have the resources for one, much less the eight or nine in the car.

It hurt, but he had to acknowledge his situation.

He still felt guilty, though, thinking about the animals that had been left behind. Ones forced into what had to be painful.

*

Roy sighed when he saw the manifests. Several chimeras had been seized, but one had gone missing in the night. He wasn’t exactly surprised – what surprised him were the questions he got from Peter on chimeras shortly later, ones filled with barely contained anger.

What also surprised him were the slight mewling sound coming from his bag that he and Hawkeye had the foresight not to question.

Roy sighed. “Look, I’m not going to ask why the questions are coming up. I do want to know why you want this information.”

“I just… I ran into one. And… Can you imagine how much pain those creatures are in?”

Roy nodded. “Either way, what are you going to do with this information.”

Roy didn’t want to spell out what he was after – then Peter might just say what he thought Roy wanted to hear.

Peter sighed, a rough one that was full of the anguish he had been barely hiding through their whole conversation.

“Nothing. There’s nothing I _can_ do. But… I just want to understand why people would do this, and then why they would do it outside of the law? I mean… How can they do that? How can they make these chimeras when they can see the pain they’re inflicting on the animals?”

Roy sighed. “Bioalchemy has always attracted odd types. The field of chimeras, specifically, isn’t exactly known for the safest or most ethical practices.

“The common justification for chimera alchemy is that most chimeras don’t live very long after they’re transmuted, meaning they aren’t in pain for long.”

He heard the sharp intake of breath from Peter and the light tap of something touching leather. Likely going to the bag that Ed had given him, an old, brown thing Ed had carried when he was younger.

“Whatever you may want to do with that chimera you took,” there was no doubt now, but as long as Peter didn’t say anything then Roy could deny knowing. “You have to be careful. You know by now, I’m sure, that you won’t be able to reverse it.

“Don’t get too attached. It likely won’t be living much longer.”

Peter was already attached, there was no doubt. The hand on his shoulder – Riza’s, based on the size – was enough to tell him that he may have taken it too far.

There was a quiet, near silent, affirmation from Peter before footsteps and the closing of a door.

Roy let himself settle into his chair, feeling the weight of the job – both that of Fuhrer and that of making sure random children he got attached to didn’t die - washing over him again. “I took it too far.”

“He needed to hear it.”

There was no denial in her voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've kind of edited this one? I went back a couple times and checked stuff while I've been writing, making edits throughout at different times. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for commenting, reading, etc.! Feel free to come talk about the story with me on [my Tumblr!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter bonds with his new friend, while confronting some unfortunate truths about the world he's found himself in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Important Note: I am in classes again, and the semester is really starting to pick up._ I'll do my best to keep up with this story, but the updates can't be maintained every day and leave me time to take care of everything I need to take care of. As such, I appreciate your patience when it takes me a bit longer to update!
> 
> Thank you for reading, and enjoy!

The chimera was actually kinda cute, once he got it clean (no easy task, given it had been fairly averse to being in water). He could hear MJ or Tony saying that was just ‘reverse Stockholm Syndrome’ or something like that, but he was happy with it.

It was playful once he had it eating regularly and had earned its trust.

He had had it a week, and he already resolved to protect it as long as he could.

The last week had seen him poring over both his normal alchemy topics – chemical manipulation, chemical transmutation, etc. – and books on bioalchemy and chimeras.

Roy wasn’t kidding. Most chimeras didn’t live very long. The longest living one was a combination of a human and dog that starved itself. Most chimeras could remain stable for a few days to two weeks, but eventually the vast differences in the bodies that were combined would lead to a collapse of the system, whether through inability to process its food or total organ failure.

It was usually total organ failure.

The human-dog chimera lived about three and a half weeks, so there was little hope for keeping his new friend alive much longer.

His hand usually found its way into his bag, letting the small little creature either nibble at his fingertips or rub its head along his palm. He wasn’t going to have very long with it at all – its health was already deteriorating. As playful as it was, its energy was waning, and it was sleeping more and more, hiding in his bag more often than not.

Maybe Roy was right – maybe it had been a bad idea to get attached. Peter looked down at the creature – it was the size of a young kitten, barely a year or so old, so it couldn’t have been too old when it was made…

Still. It was happier. It was playing, even if it whimpered or winced in pain occasionally. Even if it sometimes couldn’t keep up with what life threw at it, it was there, and it seemed happy enough now that it had a more open life.

Peter was going to hurt when it died, he could already feel it. But it would be worth it knowing it had gone out loved and happy instead of caged and afraid. He wouldn’t change his decision, even if it meant sparing himself the heartache.

*

The first time Peter noticed it as a headline, he assumed it had to do with the train.

The second time, he wondered how the news cycle had lasted that long. Sure, news travelled a little slower without the internet, but phones were a thing in Amestris. A single story couldn’t carry this long – there had to be other things going on.

The third time he saw it, he took the time and read the story. Apparently, chimera smuggling was a bigger problem than Peter had originally thought – there were laws against it, but his experience in New York should have shown him that people would circumvent the law if they really wanted to – and that was what led him here.

“Why do you even make chimera creation legal if it means you run into these problems? Not to mention the religious sectors and the more liberal scientific groups… you aren’t popular with either, from what I’ve heard, and a lot of that is the chimera laws.”

It was one more thing that Peter hadn’t expected from Amestris – an interest in politics. But engineering automail and studying alchemy could only take so much of his time. Given he actually knew Roy personally, and given alchemy was debated as a political act or tool, it had become necessary to get into the political field and at least know what was going on across the different regional borders and within Central.

Roy levelled a hard gaze, but it was off to the side. Peter fought the urge to laugh, knowing it would be so rude. But, come on, it was such a tension cutter.

“I don’t make laws to be popular, Peter. I make laws because I’m doing what I hope is best for the people of Amestris.”

“Sorry.”

Roy shook his head. “I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to understand.

“If I make bioalchemy legal, I can make sure it’s regulated. I can keep eyes on the majority of bioalchemists and make sure there are restrictions on what they’re doing. I can make sure the majority of people are acting within some kind of ethical and legal boundaries.”

“So you let it slide, even though it causes pain for countless animals, even though it’s been used for horrific things, because knowing is better than not knowing?”

Roy nodded. Peter could see the logic in it, even if he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“If I let myself be ruled by the mistakes of the past, I’ll never get anything done. If I let the mistakes of the past act as my guide, I can improve on my failures.

“Peter, knowing is always better than not knowing. I can hold others responsible for their actions if there is a mechanism by which they’re supposed to do things. If not, then it’s my fault, because I didn’t hold the people who wanted to study it accountable.”

Peter nodded, understanding. It took him a moment to catch that Roy didn’t see. “I guess that makes sense.”

“You don’t have to agree with me, Peter.”

“Huh?”

Roy smirked. “Have you ever wondered why I brought my subordinates with me as I rose through the ranks? I know you’ve done your own reading – you know that Fuery, Breda, and Riza came with me from each posting.”

And Havoc, though that went unspoken given how the other man lost his life. Roy was right, Peter had done his reading. He had started with Roy and moved to Ed, and now he was reading more broadly about the history of Amestris.

“Not really. I just figured it was better having your friends at your back – you knew you could trust them.”

“That’s part of it, yes.

“But the bulk of it is that I know they’ll call me out for a bad decision. If they disagree with something, they’ll let me know. In extreme cases, they’ve disobeyed orders to make sure I didn’t regret my choices.

“This group of people holds _me_ accountable because they question my authority. Because they question me, that means the military culture has been changing, and we all keep each other in check.” Roy gestured in Peter’s direction. “You’re quickly getting acclimated to Amestris, but you know a lot of powerful people within her borders.

“The most useful skill you can ever bring to the table is the ability to question the authority of the people around you, and to question their decisions. That is what will set you apart, and what will hold the people to whom you answer to a much higher standard.”

Peter felt something in him, emotionally, dislodge. He was being given outright permission to question Roy – the leader of a freaking country – on decisions if he disagreed. He was being told to voice disagreement with people around him, no matter who they were. It was something he had always been aware of – that voice in the back of his head telling him that a decision was a bad idea or that something was unfair – but he had never really considered how conditioned he was into responding with blind obedience.

It was a bit of a shock, but when he considered it, it made sense. He always had wanted people to like him, so he had never pushed back. He went with what the status quo was. But that wasn’t how you got things done or made change.

Peter chatted with Roy a little longer, the words echoing in his head.

_The most useful skill you can ever bring to the table is the ability to question the authority of the people around you._

He had a lot of thinking to do.

*

The kid had found his way to a rooftop – one Happy had seen before, if he wasn’t mistaken – and had pulled out that sketchbook of his.

He didn’t have much time lately to check on Peter, having devoted more time to making things work with his new associates and checking on Tony, so he didn’t know what had him so pensive. Or where that freaky looking cat thing came from. Nonetheless, he kept his eyes on Peter as his pencil moved around on the paper.

“What are you up to, kid?”

Peter couldn’t hear him, just as Happy couldn’t hear Peter. Still, when he looked off to the side, it almost felt like eye contact.

Peter sighed, lowering his hand to the animal. It rubbed along his arm before jumping onto the sketchbook and aiming for the pencil. Peter was smiling as he tried to edge it away from the sketchbook, but it wasn’t deterred in the slightest. If anything, it took the gesture as an invitation to continue playing and jumped up to be on his shoulders.

Peter was smiling and laughing, but there was that look in his eyes. It was almost like the one from right after the Vulture, and then again after a woman had died in a fire despite his efforts to save her. There was something weightier in it this time, though.

It didn’t strike Happy until later, when he had left that pool, that he had seen that look on _Tony_. It was the look Tony got when he was thinking about the long view – about what he knew was coming.

Happy started to worry a lot more about what Peter had started getting into after that.

*

Peter wasn’t tracking and hunting criminals in Amestris – he had been too absorbed by all there was to learn that he hadn’t fallen into his old habits as Spider-Man. Truth be told, it was kind of nice to be somewhere he wasn’t expected to go out and fight crime every night. He had loved helping people in New York, but somewhere along the line it became an obligation, not something done of his own volition.

The negative press he constantly got – the constant reprimand via papers like _The Bugle_ and angry online bloggers, especially – hadn’t helped either. Here, he was just another alchemist that was learning and studying and messing with chemicals. It was nice – there was no expectation of him to be anything but that.

He was a teenager again, a young man, and that felt great. He let himself embrace that freedom, and the traveling was soothing some of the itch he had had for so long, the itch that had been part of his stints fighting crime.

He didn’t like staying still, and Amestris had so much to see. There were other countries past that, too.

Even so…

Peter looked at the windowsill of the room he was staying in – one that Roy had set aside for when he or Ed were in Central that was about the size of his old living room back in New York – where his cat-creature was sleeping. She hadn’t had a name until today, and even then Pencil Pusher felt like a nickname more than anything else. He had started calling her Penny or Pen, which she responded to rather well, but he knew there wouldn’t be a better name. He never had been good at naming things.

She must have known he was looking at her, because she stretched her feet out – feet attached to long, somewhat misshapen legs that couldn’t carry her very far, especially as her energy declined – and rotated, looking at him before meowing.

“I don’t have food on me right now, girl.”

He didn’t hear Riza walk in, but he was aware of her before she walked over to pet Pen. “You’re kind. The world throws itself at you and you receive it with open arms.”

Peter shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”

Riza nodded, her hand hesitating when the chimera flinched. “Looking out for yourself isn’t selfish. It’s healthy.

“Kindness is a strength. But like everything else, it can be turned against you. Too much kindness is its own hubris.”

Peter had always liked Riza. Roy liked to ask questions and give guiding answers, but Riza was very to-the-point on things. She glanced at him. “You know how to fight?”

“With my hands.” He shrugged. “Had some experience, and then Ed taught me some more.”

She nodded. “If you ever want to shoot, I’ll teach you.”

Peter didn’t like that he couldn’t find it in himself to immediately refuse.

_Images of a woman being plowed down by a much larger chimera._

_A woman in New York that he had failed to save because he wouldn’t use the gun he had taken from her would-be-captor._

Peter swallowed his fear, his desire to immediately quash the subject. He couldn’t say no, but he couldn’t say yes, either.

“I’ll give it some thought.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! [Come say hi!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	11. Chapter 11

Pencil Pusher died a few days later, and Peter, despite the short amount of time, still felt himself reeling from it. He left Central, a few books from Roy in his bag as he worked his way back towards Resembool. A year and some change, nearly two years.

He hadn’t realized he had stopped counting the days and couldn’t quite remember if it was May fourteenth or fifteenth when he showed up in Amestris until he had wondered about his aunt. The anniversary of Ben’s death had been just at the tail end of July, and it had been a portion of time that was spent fiercely training alongside Ed, who had assuaged Winry’s worry.

_“He needs this. Let him work it out in training, where we know he’s safe.”_

He was glad for Ed and Winry.

The train stopped, finally, and Peter began walking. It would be a bit, but he would get there eventually.

He didn’t even notice that when he breathed in the crisp Resembool breeze, he felt for the first time in several weeks like he was home.

*

It was later in the afternoon when he got closer to Ed and Winry’s. The train station was actually a town over from Resembool, a two hour walk on a good day.

He was glad of his timing, though, because soon enough he had an armful of Maes Elric, who had run up to him and jumped to be held by ‘Uncle Peter’ before Peter had even registered seeing him. He had stumbled across them as Ed walked with Maes home from school.

“You’re back early.” Ed started walking down the path towards his home, gesturing for Peter, who was still holding Maes, to follow.

“Yeah, well some weird stuff was happening in Central. Roy thought I should get back here, clear my head, and then try tackling the problem from a different angle.”

Ed nodded. “We’ll train while you’re here, then.”

The door swung shut behind them, Winry closing it as she came out of her workshop. “That’s excellent advice, Peter. You should take that to heart whenever you can’t figure something out. It’ll mean we can keep up your automail maintenance, too.”

It hadn’t been more than two months that he had been away, but he had kept up fairly well.

“Ignore her.” Ed laughed, avoiding the wrench Winry had thrown onto the table. “She’s still mad I didn’t come back often.”

“You came back with my automail, autmoail I worked my ass off on, completely broken. Every damn time.”

“Not every time! Sometimes it was just kinda broken!”

Winry shook her head. “Either way, that’s not happening with Peter. He’s smarter than you, anyway.”

Peter laughed, nervous. “Please remember I’m training with him later. I don’t want him trying to kill me.”

Ed shook his head, ruffling Peter’s hair. “Oh, she doesn’t need to joke like that for me to fight hard.

“Hope you’ve been keeping up your training.”

Peter groaned. He had just gotten used to not being covered in bruises.

Winry shook her head. “Boys…” There was a pause as she started getting things out in the kitchen to make dinner. Then, she perked up. “Oh! Ginger’s pregnant!”

*

He stayed two months with the Elrics, helping Winry with a set of orders that had come in and had her pulling late nights again and again. With a second set of hands making the automail – and now she was giving him training on attaching the port and on connecting the device itself – the work was cut down to take about two-thirds of the normal time. They had also gotten him some more clothes, these ones a better fit. In his time away, he hadn’t paid attention to how his clothes were fitting him a little less comfortably.

The last night he stayed, Winry and he had made a nice sized meal. Alphonse had come to visit for the week, his wife with him and the two of them talking with Ed for a long while, Peter listening to stories of Xing with rapt attention, soaking up every detail.

Unfortunately, he had to leave that night. He had a train to catch to the South Area that would be leaving that night. If he slept through travel, he would be able to get right to work when he got there.

Peter hadn’t told anyone the details about why, when he had originally been interested in the West Area, he suddenly decided to go South. If he had, then he would have had to explain that Roy had arranged the trip, the singular letter that arrived during his time with Ed and Winry having said there was a lead to the smuggling ring there, and that if he wanted to check it out on his own, there would be no record of it on his papers (papers Roy had had made up for him during his first visit to Central, and ones that listed him as an Amestrian national). As long as he was careful and avoided engaging, he could investigate it.

Roy understood when it was hopeless to pull someone off a project. Riza had told him as much, and he had seen it before with a recruit that had proposed a terrible plan in a training exercise. When they wouldn’t be deterred, he had let them go through with it as a teaching moment.

_“If this were battle, you and your friends would be dead. Sometimes, people know more than you and they are truly trying to keep you from dying. Understood?”_

That had to be the explanation for the information Roy had given him. He knew Peter was interested, and he knew there was no hope of Peter giving it up without getting himself into more trouble than he started in. Better to give him what he needed and keep an eye on him so that there was someone he could turn to.

It was a level of trust Peter wasn’t used to having in someone. He had become so used to working the system he was in to find what he needed without his aunt or Tony finding out or getting angry with him when it was something they thought he couldn’t handle. He appreciated the concern, but at the same time, there was a level of resentment when he realized that meant they didn’t think he could handle it. Now, he had the opposite. He had a man that treated mentoring as more of supervised fuck-ups so that Peter would learn from failure.

It was a new method, but one that Peter couldn’t say whether he liked more or less than the other.

Either way, the evening train had been a much better idea. He woke up at each stop, the spider sense hissing and thrashing with the change in speed and the loud noises that peaked as people got ready to leave the train. He had gotten better about listening to it, and in return, whatever instinct it was that had formed from the spider had started taking better care to alert him to anything it thought plausibly dangerous.

It hadn’t acted up around Pencil Pusher after that first night, though. In fact, it almost seemed content having another animal around that liked Peter.

Sometimes the sense, especially now that he was listening to it more and not shoving it down, almost felt like it was speaking to him, and other times it was like a huffy older sibling chastising him for missing the obvious while it simultaneously forced him into evading whatever trouble was coming his way. It likely wouldn’t work perfectly, especially once he was in an adrenaline-based scenario, but for now it was helpful.

Peter had one more stop, though, and he could feel himself drifting off.

He let himself sleep again, and this time, he had dreams.

*

Tony featured almost as prominently in any of his dreams as May did, but in this one, there wasn’t a sign of him. There was, instead, May alone. She was talking on the phone, she was holding one of those pregnancy test sticks, and she was gesturing with her hand (while it still hold the stick) as she spoke. She was nervous. He might not have been able to hear her, but he had grown up around her. He knew what her tells were.

When he woke up, he had barely considered the dream. He had other things on his mind, and as much as he hated to admit it, he also had another grief there too. This one he knew was coming, and that helped some, but still.

The city he was in was a nice one. It was smaller than Central, and a lot calmer.

He quickly latched onto someone who looked sketchy. She was pale as ice, looking almost fearful as she stood, ramrod straight, glancing around for something. Peter walked up to her, introducing himself as he got close.

“You lose something?”

“Um.” She smiled, but Peter could see the edges of thoughts racing through her head just by the way her eyes went from determined to hazed to hardened in the half a moment leading up to her reply. “Yes. My dog got out.”

Peter nodded. “Let me help you.”

*

Her dog had _not_ gotten out, but that didn’t exactly surprise Peter. Roy and Riza’s lessons on reading people had paid off, so he was prepared when it turned out “dog” meant “chimera” and “got out” meant “needed to be tested” (her words, not his).

Still, fighting a chimera was _not_ on his list of things to do today. He was hoping to have at least a few days of investigating before he had to fight any monsters.

The woman had sneered when he pointed out that the reason it was so aggressive was because they put it in pain and then forced it to do things like this. She had called him ‘soft’, and then proceeded to leave the small arena-like space she had taken him to under the city.

Yeah, looking for trouble really was starting to backfire.

He ducked a clawed paw as the chimera charged again. He rolled into the duck, clapping his hands and slamming them against the pavement. He still hadn’t gotten web alchemy to work (and technically, it hadn’t worked this time, either, given the web like pattern shooting/burning its way up his arms), but pressure helped. While before the rebounds were painful and the results were slim, this time he got something to catch the creature and slow it down long enough for him to breathe and make a weapon.

He hated that it occurred to him that he could have shot the chimera in those few seconds if he had taken Riza up on her offer.

He hated even more that he was seriously considering it.

The chimera charged him, screeching as he plunged the long, haphazard blade (he would have to work on creating weapons under pressure, too) into its neck.

He didn’t bother pursuing the girl. He didn’t have it in him right then. Besides, for all he knew she was long gone. Instead, he went to find somewhere to stay, sighing as his head hit the pillow.

He wouldn’t be able to rely on just his hands anymore. As much as he detested the idea – as much as it made his chest tight, and his breath halt – he had to concede that maybe learning how to shoot, especially from someone trained and professional like Riza, wouldn’t be a bad idea.

He still couldn’t help but scowl as he wrote a quick letter.

That night, his dreams were mere nightmares recounting every encounter he had before with guns. More than any of them was the night Ben died. When he woke up in the morning, he hated that he was making this decision.

*

Riza opened up the letter, by now more than familiar with Peter’s handwriting.

_Would you still be willing to teach me?_

There was more to the letter – a scrawled account that amounted to him not feeling safe enough against the threat he had stumbled upon to rely only on alchemy and his fists. She knew he would resent the weapon itself, she had seen it in his eyes the second she had offered to teach him, but she also knew Peter had changed in the short time she had known him. The young man that had been about learning everything and going home was now a man focused on doing the good he could in Amestris while simultaneously drinking in any and all information their world could offer him out of pure fascination.

She knew there was a history with guns for Peter that wasn’t going to be an easy obstacle to overcome, but she knew Peter was strong. He would handle it, just like he handled everything else his life threw at him in the last few years.

The next day, she purchased a medium-sized handgun, a sleek black thing he would be able to conceal easily, and prepared for his eventual return to Amestris. She had lessons to plan while she helped Roy and the others run the country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I've had a lot to do this week - a different major assignment due every day, none of which I was ready for. I am doing my best to keep up with this, though, so hopefully you'll get something at least once a week or so!


	12. Chapter 12

Peter’s first encounter with a gun since coming to Amestris was a disaster, but Riza had planned for that. He had picked it up and started shaking, barely containing his panic as the gun dropped out of his hands and onto the floor. He hadn’t realized he was backing away from the shooting range area until Riza put a firm hand on his back and pushed gently.

“You asked for this.”

“I can’t do this.”

“You can. But we don’t have to.”

Peter’s breath was shaky for a few moments before he finally pulled himself together. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

Riza smiled at him. A sad smile, but one nonetheless. She put the gun in front of him.

“You know the parts?”

He didn’t.

*

Happy watched more frequently the next several days, watching as Peter steadily stopped panicking when he held the gun, or when it went off. He knew the kid had never liked guns – Tony had offered to teach him to shoot once and the physical recoil on the kid had been painful to watch. It was like Tony had smacked him across the face and then scolded him.

Peter looked a little broken every time he was in that shooting range, but Happy saw that fire in him – the one that had led to Happy dragging him into the Compound Medbay at one in the morning the night the kid was supposed to be at Homecoming, covered in cuts and bruises and wearing the damn onesie Happy had seen him in in Germany. It was a determination that promised nothing good, especially where Peter was concerned, because Peter didn’t know when to quit. He would push himself and push himself until the day he fell over dead from exhaustion. It was just a facet of Peter’s personality, albeit one that had stressed Happy out from the moment he met the kid. There was no reason for it, but Happy knew that it was pointless to stop it.

After all, Peter and Tony had gotten along for a reason – they were too much alike. Evidently, the blonde woman that was with him – and who had decided to travel back to the town he had nearly _died_ in with him – understood this. She didn’t try to stop him, only helped him keep a cool head.

Still, that didn’t make the scene before Happy any easier.

“He’s going to have to make some tough decisions.”

The woman behind him was the same one from before. She sat behind him. “By the time he may return to your world, he will not be the same person.”

“Why can’t he be?” Happy shook his head. “Why couldn’t he have come here, where we could have protected him?”

She shook her head. “Look around you, Mister Hogan. Here is the beginnings of society, but you’re ignoring the pieces around you that are of a society that is clawing its way day in and day out from the brink of collapse. Don’t think he would have come out of here unchanged.”

“But I could have protected him.”

“Would you have?” The woman held his gaze, challenging every part of him. “Would you have, or would you have tired or told him he needed to grow up? That being a child in this environment was unacceptable? That he was too old to be afraid?”

Happy couldn’t respond. He tried his best, but the kid grated his nerves sometimes with how excitable he was. It wasn’t fair to him, but it reminded him of a younger Tony, one that was still bright-eyed and ready to face the world. He liked Peter well enough, but the woman raised a point. His optimism and constant push for happy endings would have pushed Happy to snapping in this world.

And she was right. Their makeshift society was barely holding itself together. They had a semi-efficient almost-currency in place, but so many people claimed to be the leadership, and so many species had conflicts with one another, it was a miracle any of them were even keeping from killing each other.

“Why is it that I have to watch, then? Why couldn’t I just not have known?”

“You needed to grow up, too, Mister Hogan.”

He hated that answer, but she didn’t even wait for his response, moving ahead.

“I was forced to choose indiscriminately from the universe. Half of all life. I barely managed to stop him from slipping through, but when I sent him away, I was deliberate about it. Amestris is no place for a child such as him, this is true.

“But he is a man, now, as young as he may be, and he is learning to cope with the world around him in a way that being here or on your world never could have taught him. At the very least, if you’re going to hate my decision, understand it. I am trying to give you and your people an edge in the coming battle. If and when he comes back to you and your boss, he will be an asset.

“I know you and Stark claimed him a liability on the battlefield. I can see it in your soul that you thought he was ‘too much talk and not enough focus’. It is a shame he has to lose parts of himself, but we all must make sacrifices.”

She left, and Happy continued watching.

He watched as Peter and the blonde woman walked down the street, pausing at an old warehouse. Even Happy could tell it looked suspicious, but the two of them barely spoke as they entered, Peter taking the lead. He turned to her, saying something. It was times like these Happy resented the lack of audio.

Neither one had their weapons out, but a second later, the woman was pushing Peter back, her gun drawn and shouting at him. Peter obliged, clapping his hands together and slamming them on the ground, the terrain shifting around them.

There were several assailants, one of which grabbed Peter from behind, holding a knife to his neck.

“RIZA!”

“What the hell?”

The woman was back.

“You control what you see. I have limited ability for what you hear. You only have a few minutes, so listen well.”

There was a scuffling sound. The person holding the knife to his neck was sneering something about ‘honoring the noble tradition of the chimera’ before moving it towards Peter.

He hadn’t gotten that far, because soon he was falling back, Peter pushing his arm away and backing away in shock.

“You killed him!”

“What did you think guns were for?” Riza turned around, gesturing for Peter to continue the fight. There were a few more assailants.

“I- I-…” Peter sighed. “Alright.”

It was _not_ alright. Not at all. Happy could see it in Peter’s face, and he felt the anger from earlier rising up again. Even if the kid would have driven him up a wall, he should _be here_ , where he could be protected. This woman was throwing him into the fire.

(Happy ignored the more rational part of his brain that pointed out that Peter didn’t need thrown into anything. He jumped in head-first without a second thought, and that was even more terrifying.)

 Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done, because Peter, try as he might to fight in a way that would incapacitate the opponent, was met with people that were aiming to kill. People that were able to use the same weapons Peter was literally dragging out of the ground with much more proficiency than Peter was able to.

“Peter, duck!”

Peter did, and then he was watching as the knife that was flying through the air made its way towards Riza, and Happy felt his chest constrict.

No. The kid shouldn’t be forced to watch someone else die. Especially not when it was someone he cared about.

The knife hit her side, and soon the others in the group were moving towards her. Peter didn’t even seem to think about it as he pulled out his own gun, shooting towards the man closest to Riza and sobbing as he hit the man in the stomach.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He moved towards Riza, shooting when he had to. When he was finally close enough, he picked her up, keeping the gun up and ready to shoot.

He hit another person in the neck, and missed two shots on someone else.

He apologized the whole time.

“I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

Peter had never wanted to kill anyone. He had said as much after Happy found out more about the Vulture and what had happened. He had vowed never to tell Tony, and he had honored that, but he had looked at the kid like he was an idiot. He was a superhero, and all of the superheroes that Happy knew had killed someone.

But Peter had promised he never would.

The most painful part of watching the scene, even as the audio cut out, was the defeat in his voice. Happy was desensitized the violence, was used to seeing the people he loved getting hurt.

But he had never liked that tone.

Not on Tony. Not on Rhodey.

Not on Peter.

*

Riza woke up in a hospital, stitches in her side. She looked over to see Peter, asleep in a chair. His hair was a bit matted against the bed, looking like it was going to be a royal mess when he woke up for all the tangles already in it, and his clothes were wrinkled.

The dirt and blood on his face had dried over, but there were tear tracks down his cheeks.

She must not have been out too long, then. The hospital staff would have forced him to clean himself up if it had been too long – she had spent enough time in and out of them during and since Ishval to know that they let incomers sit with the person a bit to know they were okay.

_Roy, sitting by her side as she healed from the burns on her shoulder._

_Her, sitting at Roy’s bedside after a fight that had nearly claimed his life._

_The both of them, staring down at a boy barely old enough to understand the scope of life, and yet already versed in its worst tragedies._

She looked at Peter.

One more time that someone was sitting in a hospital, facing mortality in a way that balanced chances on the edge of a knife at times.

She put a hand in Peter’s hair. “Wake up.”

He was sitting up, looking distant.

“You didn’t sleep well.”

Peter shrugged. “I’ve gotten used to sleeping through the nightmares.”

She grimaced. “They won’t go away, so I applaud you for that.”

Peter sighed. “I didn’t want to kill people.”

“They would have killed us.”

“That doesn’t change it.”

Riza pulled her hand through Peter’s hair. It was starting to get a bit too long – he would have to tie it up soon, and she would be sure to teach him how to do it effectively.

“We can’t change the past, we can only move forward.”

“I keep hearing that. Hell, I keep _saying_ that. Does it ever get any easier, though?”

Riza’s hair stopped in a knot of Peter’s hair before moving back up to the top of his head. Peter hadn’t moved his head, apparently enjoying the feeling. “The knowledge will never be an easy burden to bear, and it shouldn’t be. But the pain of it will fade with time.”

Peter nodded, the tears starting a bit again.

“Sorry for crying.”

“Don’t be. It’s alright.” She smiled. “I’d even encourage it. Unless you want to turn out like Roy.”

Peter laughed at that, sitting up and pushing his hair back.

“God, this is getting long.”

“I have some tricks to show you.”

It would be nice to teach him something other than how to hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [lawyersuperpowers](http://lawyersuperpowers.tumblr.com) on tumblr for listening to all my ideas and headcanons for this story!


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